Sacrifice
by Fluffy-CSI
Summary: FINISHED! Ch. 25 posted. Sequel to Spilled Blood. A prominent defense attorney is murdered in her own apartment. Can Goren and Eames solve the case while still hiding their relationship from the world? BA
1. Late night wake up call

A/N: This is a sequel to my story Spilled Blood, although you could probably get away with not reading that and still follow this decently. The character interactions are carry-overs, but the plot is independent of SB

A/N 2: Future chapters will be longer than this...I just wanted to get a teaser out there for you guys to enjoy.

A/N 3: I was planning on skipping NaNo, since I wrote Spilled Blood in 18-ish days, but since I'm starting a new story today, I figure I'll try to make this my NaNovel. Which should mean regular updates...but then, who knows

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The shrill of Bobby's phone woke him with a start. He checked the clock and found that it was 2:45 in the morning. And damn it, he'd only fallen asleep an hour ago.

The phone shrilled again.

"Answer the damn thing, Bobby," a muffled voice ordered from under the covers.

He gave the lump that was her a comforting pat and and reached for the phone. "Goren."

"How soon can you get to Central Park West?" demanded his caller.

Bobby closed his eyes and sighed. "Who died?"

The lump under the covers stiffened and began to move toward him. Before she could pounce and start hanging over his shoulder to listen, he yanked the sheets off of her and silently pointed her to the phone's other extension, which happened to be in the kitchen.

"Cold!" she mouthed.

He shrugged and waved toward the pile of clothes she'd left on the floor when they had gone to bed.

"Goren? You there?" Deakins voice called through the phone.

"Yeah, sorry. Just, uh, grabbing a pen. What's going on?"

"Gabrielle Young's been killed."

He heard the faint _click _as she picked up the other phone, so for her benefit he repeated, "Gabrielle Young? The defense attorney?"

"Yeah. Shot in her apartment - which brings me back to 'how soon can you get to Central Park West and Eighty-first?'"

He took a moment to calculate. Traffic wouldn't be bad this late at night, and not having to pick up Eames on the way would shave another fifteen minutes off his transit time. "Half an hour, forty-five minutes."

Deakins sighed. "I guess that'll have to do. Her husband's raising hell over here about how we're wasting 'precious investigation time,' so move it, would you?"

"Yes, sir. Half an hour," he assured the captain, then set down the phone and groaned.

"See?" she said, appearing in the bedroom doorway wearing a smirk and one of his undershirts. "I told you it's more convenient to set your clothes out before you go to bed."

"Don't start," he said over his shoulder as he grabbed a clean shirt out of the closet.

"Perfectionist," she accused teasingly, pulling on her jeans.

He just grunted and buckled his belt. "Ready?"

She held up a finger in a "wait" gesture and felt around the nightstand for a few seconds. "Aha!" She snatched up an elastic band, pulled her hair back into a crooked ponytail, and nodded. "Ok, let's go."


	2. At the scene

A/N: Don't you worry, my dear readers...there will be plenty of Logan for you all to enjoy!

A/N 2: I know my NYC streets, but I never quite figured out the building numbering system, so let's just pretend the address I give in this chap is valid...

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They stopped for Dunkin' Donuts coffee on the way, but with Alex driving they still managed to arrive at the front door of 1105 Central Park West at exactly 3:28. The doorman took a look at their badges and just nodded, waving them to the elevator.

Goren took a close look at his partner as the elevator car began its thirty-five story trek and decided that being called out in the middle of the night must be much more frustrating for a woman than for a man, if the scowl on her face and smudged make-up around her eyes were anything to judge by.

"What?" she said, noticing his stare.

"You have, uh . . ." He reached out and used his thumb to wipe the area under one of her eyes, then held it up to show her the black residue. "You have mascara smudges."

"Crap. I should know better than to let myself fall asleep without taking off my makeup."

"Deakins probably won't notice. If he does, tell him you had a hot date with Logan."

"Bobby," she said, narrowing her eyes threateningly.

"Just a suggestion." He looked away from her and focused on the rapidly-changing floor number display, which was just flicking from 34 to 35.

They stepped out of the elevator into a hallway crammed with people. Checking to make sure she was behind him, Bobby began to plow a trail through the mass of humanity, murmuring a series of apologies to the people he stepped on or tripped over.Alex simply followed along in his wake, dispensing apologetic smiles to those who looked offended at their passage.

"Goren, Eames!" Deakins called when he saw them enter the plush, sunken living room of Gabrielle Young's apartment. "Listen, I didn't want to call you guys out so late, especially right after you closed the Kim case, but it's out of my hands - you guys are here by special request of the brass, who apparently are afraid of being sued by the widower if we don't solve this ASAP." Noticing the questioning looks on their faces, he shrugged and added sarcastically, "Must be a new regulation: thou shalt kowtow to the opposite side."

They stepped closer to him and the body he was standing next to, presumably that of Ms. Young. Alex drew in a sharp breath at the sight of the dead woman's face, which was puffy and discolored, at least where it wasn't covered with dried blood. "I thought you said she was shot!"

"She was. Guess the perp just wanted to have a little fun before he got down to business."

She wrinkled her nose at his less-than-couth phrasing and just moved on, walking around the body to get a better idea of the circumstances. "Well, she was already settled in for the night," she said to no one in particular as she noted the woman's silk peignoir and lack of jewelry. "Is the M.E. here yet?"

Deakins nodded, waving vaguely toward the other side of the room, where a cluster of people in _Forensics _jackets stood.

Alex glanced back at Bobby and, finding him prone on the floor next to Gabrielle Young, just shook her head and headed in the direction Deakins had indicated.

Deakins looked down at his remaining detective just in time to see him lift the woman's shirt and peek under it. "Every time I think you've bottomed out, you manage to get weirder," he told Goren with a sigh.

"I'm checking for . . .signs of abuse. If her face is battered, it's reasonable to wonder if the rest of her also is."

"And is it?"

"Doesn't look like it." He replaced the shirt and stood up, using his wrist to scratch his face so he didn't contaminate his glove. "It's possible they're just well-healed, but I . . . I don't think she was a victim of regular violence."

"That doesn't help."

Goren shrugged. "It might in the future." Bending back over the body, this time looking at the woman's face, he began to list the visible injuries: "Broken nose . . . split bottom lip. Lacerated frenulum, black eye. One loosened tooth. Who's the husband and where is he?" he added, looking up at Deakins.

"Norman Young. I think the uniforms moved him to the hallway. I started ignoring him after the fifteenth time he told me that our department's response is an 'outrage' and he had 'powerful friends.'"

Bobby looked over his shoulder toward the front door and began, "I'm going to go -"

His sentence was cut off by a bloodcurdling scream that suddenly rent the air. All heads jerked up as everyone's eyes tried to locate the source of the noise. There was another wail, this time more intelligible: "Mommy!" Then there was a commotion as the screamer was restrained from moving any closer to the body.

The two men standing near the body exchanged apprehensive looks before Goren straightened up with a quiet groan and moved toward the source of the noise.

What he found when he reached the doorway was a woman of about twenty, being restrained from dashing to the body by a uniform and a man who must have been her father. Her heart-shaped face was red and tear-stained, and she looked like she had jumped out of bed to come here - as they all had - but forgotten to change out of her pajamas. Her flannel pants and oversized t-shirt were wrinkled, he noticed, and the ponytail holding her hair back resembled the one Alex had hastily scraped her own hair into an hour ago when she had gotten out of bed.

As he continued to study the girl, she seemed to give up the struggle; choosing instead to sag back into the arms of her supporters.

Goren met the eyes of the uniform, who nodded and released her arm, then turned his attention to the girl's father, who seemed to be torn between concern for her and anger at the situation. His head took on a pugnacious tilt as he watched Goren approach, but when the detective slowly reached out to touch the girl's free arm, he made no objection.

"Miss?" Bobby said gently, bending down to see her face better.

Drawing in a shuddering breath, the girl raised her head slightly to look at him. "Who . . ." She stopped and made a visible effort to steady her voice. "Who are you?"

"My name is Robert Goren. I'm a, uh, detective. Are you Gabrielle Young's daughter?"

She nodded, her eyes moving again to the still form lying inside the room.

"What's your name?" he asked. After quickly meeting her father's eyes and getting tacit permission, he steered her out of sight of the body and then out of the room entirely.

She glanced over her shoulder once more at her mother's still form, then allowed Bobby to lead her into the hallway. "My name's Claire," she replied almost inaudibly.

"Claire," he repeated. "Pretty name. Do you live here, in this apartment, Claire?"

She shook her head, not bothering to push back the thick lock of blonde hair that fell over her face with the movement. "I live downtown, with my boyfriend. I . . . I got here as soon as I could after my dad called me." Fresh tears began to fall as she was reminded of why she had come. "I should have stayed . . ."

Now _that _was an intriguing statement. To his frustration, though, Goren could tell that the distraught girl was teetering on the edge of her self-control, and therefore now was _not_ a good time for more questions.

If he wasn't going to get anything from the daughter tonight, he needed to get back to the body; however, he definitely didn't want to bring Claire back into the room. After a moment's thought, he said, "Claire, I'm going to go get your father, ok? You stay here."

A few minutes later, Claire and Norman Young were clinging to each other in the hallway under the watchful eye of an officer whose name tag identified him as "McNeil," and Bobby was making his way to where his partner stood with Captain Deakins.

"Did I see you talking to the husband back there?" Eames asked when he stopped beside her.

"Daughter. She was the one screaming."

"God," Deakins said with a shake of his head, "poor kid. Was she able to tell you anything?"

"I think she does have something to . . . to, uh, tell, but she's too shaken up right now to answer questions adequately," Goren sighed.

Alex gave him a quick look, surprised at his statement. She'd always known that Bobby Goren treated emotionally fragile witnesses gently, but usually he found a way to get them to talk through their tears. An image of Maggie Coulter flashed through her mind - the stouthearted child sobbing in Goren's arms as he coaxed the truth from her - and suddenly she felt the urge to go find Gabrielle Young's daughter and hug her.

"What?" Bobby's voice broke into her thoughts. "You're staring at me."

She shook her head. "Nothing important. Just remembering how good you are with emotional witnesses."

"Well if he's so good with them, I'd like to know why he didn't get Claire Young to talk," Deakins spoke up.

"She's still half-asleep and trying to get her head around what happened. Questioning her now, when her head's clouded, would be superfluous, because we'd just have to question her again when she had calmed down."

Deakins rolled his eyes and threw up his hands, repeating sarcastically under his breath, "It's 'superfluous'." Drawing in a breath, he looked around the room, noticing the slow dispersal of officers and techs that had been going on for a few minutes now. "We're done here. Go home, both of you. But Bobby, I want that girl interviewed as soon as possible."

"Yeah, uh, tomorrow," Goren muttered, already getting ready to herd Eames out the door. "Night."

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"What'd you find on the body?" Alex asked half an hour later as she turned the car onto Bobby's block.

"Not much that you didn't see at first glance. Bruising on the face but not on the torso. Small-caliber entry wound, mid-forehead, but no exit wound."

She glanced at him. "No fun smells?"

"No," he replied, oblivious to the question being her attempt at a joke. "What did you get from forensics?"

"Same story. Small caliber, body in fairly good condition. Dead four to six hours, judging by liver temp. What time is it?" she asked as she pulled into a parking space.

"Four thirty-five. Why?"

"We can still catch three hours of sleep."

He sighed. "What's the -"

"Don't you dare," she interrupted, "ask me what the point of going back to sleep is. You can stay up and alphabetize your pantry if you want, but I'm old and I need my beauty rest."

"Old," he echoed with a snort, following her through the security door and into the elevator. "If you're old, then what am I?"

"Hyperactive," she retorted with a smirk. "So, you talked to the daughter . . . did you talk to the husband too?"

"No, but I think one of the uniforms did."

"Well, did someone at least get contact information for everyone?" she asked impatiently as they stepped off the elevator on his floor.

"I sent McNeil to stay with them," he said evenly. "He was pulling out a notepad when I left."

"Mmm." That had been a dumb question to ask, she reflected. Gathering contact information from people at a scene was elementary to any police officer with more than five minutes of experience. She knew that if Bobby wasn't as tired as he obviously was, he would have called her on the insulting question. "Sorry," she mumbled, taking his keyring and pulling out the one for his door.

"S'ok." He glanced at the kitchen as they walked in, then looked back at her and yawned. "I think the pantry's going to have to wait."

"Good." She kicked off her shoes, shrugged off her coat, and disappeared into the bedroom, shedding clothes as she went.

Bobby watched her, sighed, and followed more slowly, hanging up or folding each article of clothing she dropped. By the time he got his own clothes off and walked to the bed, she was already buried under the blankets.

She poked her head out when she felt the bed give under his weight and gave him a smile. "One day I'm going to break you of the cleaning habit."

"Not likely." He dropped a kiss on top of her head as he lay down beside her, murmuring, "You'll thank me in the morning."


	3. Crossreferencing

There wasn't enough time to thank him in the morning, as it turned out. Alex, in a fit of mulishness, refused to get out of bed for so long that he eventually gave up on finesse, pulled the covers off her, and rolled her out of bed when she refused to stand up.

In retaliation, she made a point of sulking until he agreed to buy her a cafe mocha and a cherry danish on the way to work, and as a result, they jogged into the MC squad room ten minutes late, only to find Deakins perched on Bobby's desk, glaring at them. "Late call-outs do not equal late show-ups, detectives," he informed them as they approached. "However, if that Starbucks bag I see in your hand," he added, nodding at Alex, "contains something for me, I might let the tardiness slide."

Always a few steps ahead, they had anticipated this, and it took mere seconds for Alex to produce a king-sized blueberry muffin from the bag and hand it to him.

"Forgiven," he mumbled through his first bite. "Brainstorming, my office, ten minutes."

"Ten minutes," Alex said with a small smile when he was gone. "Just enough time for me to cram down my morning sugar rush." She bit into her pastry and began to chew, then paused. "Are you not having breakfast, or did you eat at home?"

Setting aside his portfolio, he rolled his eyes, lowered his voice, and leaned across his desk toward her. "With the amount of time it took to get you up, I could have made a four-course gourmet meal," he whispered. She threw a danish crumb at him and he grinned and went on, "I think that food needs to be in your stomach more than it needs to be in my hair. And yes, I had breakfast at home."

"Good," she replied, taking another big bite. Closing her eyes, she threw back her head and adopted an exaggerated expression of pleasure, mumbling "Mmmm . . ." as she chewed.

"You know," he said thoughtfully as he watched her eat. "That face is actually a lot like your -"

"Say one more word and you're doing all the paperwork for the next week," she cut him off grimly, opening her eyes to glare at him.

He shut his mouth and tried not to laugh.

A few seconds later, she popped the last bite of danish into her mouth and licked her fingers. "Done. Ready?"

"Sure."

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They walked together to Deakins's office. As was their habit, Bobby held the door for her then followed her in.

He noticed that the entire muffin they'd brought Deakins had been devoured; its crumb-filled wrapper was balled up on the corner of his desk. He was considering making a move to throw it out when Alex not-so-subtly stepped on his foot in warning. He glanced at her, sighed, and took a seat instead.

"What's wrong with you, Alex?" Deakins said in mock-horror. "Never, ever turn down someone who wants to clean up after you! I tell you this from experience, young lady."

"I'll keep that in mind," she said noncommittally. "So, brainstorming?"

"Right. We didn't have much time last night to field ideas, so I figured we might as well do that before I send you out to chase your tails."

"The daughter is obviously on the top of the 'Must Interview' list," Alex said.

"Goren, are you going to cover that?" Deakins asked.

"We're going to try her apartment this afternoon."

"Good. What else have we got?"

Eames shrugged. "She was a defense attorney. There's probably hundreds of of convicted criminals in the city who had an ax to grind with her."

"Along with the occasional prosecutor," Goren added. "Some of them don't take losing lightly."

"Husband?" Deakins suggested.

"Possibly," Alex acknowledged. "Bobby, you got a look at him, didn't you?"

He nodded. "He wasn't giving off obvious murder vibes, at least. But I really only saw him for, uh, a few seconds. He was concerned for his daughter, I'm sure of that."

"We'll keep him on the list until you have something more concrete than 'vibes,'" Deakins said. "Other suspects?"

Goren and Eames looked at each other and shrugged.

"Ok, then how about useful witnesses? Daughter and husband are a given."

"People she worked with," Alex said. "Partners and paralegals at the firm."

"Friends, if we can find out who she socialized with," Goren added. "That'll have to come from the husband."

Deakins nodded. "Makes sense. Either of you got a theory you want to try out while we're here?"

There were a few seconds of silence before Eames said, "There's always the 'jealous husband' theory and the 'greedy heir wants her money' theory."

Shrugs and doubtful faces abounded.

"For now, I kind of like the 'prosecutor gone bad' theory," Bobby said.

Alex smirked. "Yeah, just so you can get Carver by proxy."

"Enough," Deakins said. He was beginning to get the hang of preventing them from bickering; it was just a matter of noticing when Eames's eyebrows went up and Goren's chin went down and then breaking in. "What are you going to work on this morning?"

"Can the DA's office get us a list of all the defendants she's represented in, say, the past year?" Alex suggested.

"I'm sure they can, and I doubt they'll hold us up for a subpoena, since it's one of their own - sort of."

"And a list of recent parolees, too," Goren said.

"Wonderful," Alex said with a roll of her eyes. "A morning of cross-referencing databases, my favorite."

"At least you can suffer together," Deakins said with a grin. "Go on, get out. Get back to me if you find something good." He waved them out the door, wondering for a moment what had sparked their recent run of squabbles.

Then the phone rang and his thoughts moved on to what he wanted his wife to make for dinner.

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Half an hour and two cups of coffee later, the fax machine began spitting out page after page of court records involving Gabrielle Young, all alphabetized by the prosecutor's last name. Every few minutes, one of them would walk over and retrieve the newest pile, then return and dump it on top of the rest of the pages covering their desks.

After half an hour of that, the machine paused for a few seconds, seemed to gasp in exhaustion, and resumed printing, this time a list of the current statuses of every defendant Young had represented in the City of New York in the last eighteen months. With a sigh, Alex stood up to get the newest pile and glanced back at their desks, which were beginning to resemble a scaled-down ski slope. She was pretty sure a person could suffocate if they got covered with that much paper.

They sat opposite each other, leaning back in their chairs with legal pads and print-outs in hand, attempting to read the lines of tiny print without getting dizzy and copy down relevant information without getting hand cramps. Occasionally one of them would lower a page back to their desk and mark something with the highlighter, or drop the paper into their lap and stretch or yawn.

It was during one of her stretches that Alex happened to look up and meet Bobby's eyes. He looked down at the pile of paper, then back up at her. "Ten down, one hundred ninety-nine to go," he said with a pained sigh.

Alex, who had almost forgotten either of them had the power of speech, stared at him for a second, then started laughing.

"What's so funny?"

"Do you think this would go faster if we started a round of 'Ninety-nine pages of names on the wall'?"

He blinked, then gave her an answering smile. "I think I'd be a lot more willing to sit here if we had ninety-nine bottles of beer sitting around our desks."

"I'll buy you a beer after work if you buy me one."

"Where's the fun in that?"

"You tell me," she shot back.

"Well, we do seem to tolerate paperwork better when it goes with alcohol. Maybe it should become our strategy."

She rolled her eyes. "Great, then we wouldn't be just 'Goren and Eames, the weird cops,' we'd be 'Goren and Eames, the _drunk_ weird cops.' _So _much better for our reputations."

"Ok, you've got a point there," he said with a sigh. "You find anything yet?"

"Nothing worth reading twice. Bunch of parolees," she said in a tired voice, leafing through the pad in front of her, "a couple prosecutors I happen to think are bitchy, and a damn long list of satisfied customers. You?"

"Same."

"Damn."

"Agreed. So, about that beer . . ."

She grinned. "You're on. Now get back to work, _Detective_."

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They were making their way to the elevators, print-outs in hand and debating where to go for lunch, when it happened: Alex, concentrating on a name on her list that looked familiar, rounded the corner and ran smack into another body, then bounced off of it with a gasp. Moving quickly, Bobby caught her before she could go down, and set her back on her feet. After a second, when they were both sure she was steady, they looked up to see who she had hit.

Mike Logan was leaning against the wall slightly in front of Alex, watching them with an expressionless face. "You ok?" he asked her after glancing at and then mentally dismissing her partner.

She brushed imaginary dirt off her sleeve. "I'm fine, thanks. You should watch where you're going."

Logan raised his eyebrows. "I wasn't the one trying to walk and read at the same time. That's like rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time - it just can't be done. What's so interesting that you can't stop walking to read it, anyway?"

"New case," she muttered with a baleful look at the stack of papers in her hand.

"Wow. Deakins really doesn't let up on you guys, does he? My sympathies."

"That's what comes with being the best," Goren said tersely.

Alex looked up at him in surprise. "Bobby! You never brag. Stop being an ass just because you're talking to Mike."

"Yeah, 'Bobby'," Logan mimicked with a grin.

His smile disappeared quickly when she turned on him and snapped, "And _you_, as usual, are doing your best to cause trouble. Go harass your partner or something; Goren and I have got a lot to do." She shook her handful of papers in his face threateningly as she spoke.

"But Carolyn's not as much fun as you," he complained.

"Good. You need a calming influence. Now if you'll excuse us, I'm hungry." With that, she turned her back on him in dismissal and pushed the call button for the elevator.

Goren cast her an amused look and moved to wait next to her. "So . . . where was it you wanted to go for lunch?"

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A/N: Everyone together now...Logan's back! And still up to his usual tricks..


	4. Scripting

They had hardly taken their seats at the diner when Alex bounced up out of her chair with an excited exclamation. Goren checked over his shoulder, wondering if an old friend of hers had just walked in or something, but found the entryway empty except for a bored-looking teenaged waitress.

When she turned her slightly-too-wide eyes on him, he raised his eyebrows. "Care to share with the rest of the class?"

"These," she said, pointing at the sea of print-outs as she sat down again, "these are from a database, right? A computer file?"

"Uh, yes. Why?"

"I can . . . no, wait, hold on." She held up a finger, telling him to wait, and yanked her phone out of her pocket.

He watched as she dialed what looked like the main line for One PP, then entered an extension he didn't recognize. Still in the dark, he wondered if this was how she felt when he jumped ahead of her in investigations. If it was, he decided, he would start being more careful to include her in his reasoning from now on.

Whoever it was on the other end, she grinned widely when they answered. He listened carefully to her end of the conversation:

- "Hey, it's your Cupid, checking in! I've got good news and work news, which do you want first?"

- A pause. He thought he could hear a male voice on the other end, but it was too muffled to be identifiable.

- "Ok. I need your professional expertise for a couple of minutes . . . What? No, no hardware. I have print-outs of two huge databases of court records that Bobby and I have been trying to cross-reference all morning, and it just now occurred to me that . . . Right, exactly. We don't have the files, but it shouldn't be difficult to get them, right?"

- The male voice again, sounding more enthusiastic now.

- "If you would do that for me, I would be your willing slave for at least a week! We're at lunch right now, so we don't have access to everything . . ."

Bobby didn't think he liked hearing her offer herself up in slavery, but she seemed excited about whatever she was asking this person to do. He trusted her instincts; he just didn't have to particularly care for her methods.

- "How long?" Alex was asking the phone. A short pause, then: "Perfect! That's about how long it'll take us to get to you . . . oh, hold on."

She put her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and said, "Bobby, can you tell the waitress we need the food to go?" Without waiting for his answer, she returned her attention to the phone.

Bobby sighed and signalled to their long-suffering waitress, who was used to this sort of quick departure by them.

- "So if we can get them, you think you could walk me through a script?" Alex said.

- A short reply in the male voice.

- "You, my friend, are wonderful." Pause. "What? Oh, you'll just have to wait for us to get there for that. Too much of a hurry now. Sorry . . . no, uh, no, really, there is something, I promise. Just keep your pants on for half an hour, ok?"

- Laughter.

- "Good, thank you. See you in a little bit."

She stood up and looked at Bobby expectantly when he didn't move. "Well? You coming?"

"Don't you think we should wait for our lunches? She's wrapping them up," he replied, motioning toward the kitchen. "In the meantime, you want to tell me who that was and where we're going?"

She smiled teasingly. "Why Goren, you haven't reasoned it out? You're losing your touch." When he just frowned slightly, she patted his shoulder. "We, o partner-of-mine, are going to visit your wannabe boyfriend," she said as they stood up and made their way to the cash register.

"My . . . what?"

She gave him an exasperated look. "Dan Lowe, from tech. The guy who did the laptop for us a few days ago? Remember? After you wandered out of his office, he asked me if you were single."

He blinked. "Uh . . . what did you tell him?"

There was an almost imperceptible pause before she answered, "I told him you're not gay." Well, that wasn't exactly what she'd said to Dan, but there was no way she was getting into the girlfriend/not-girlfriend issue with her partner right now. "He's getting the actual database files from the courthouse - he said if they're cooperative and e-mail them, it probably won't take more than 10 minutes - and then we're going to write a script to cross-reference them."

Bobby sorted through his mental lexicon, trying to pin down what "script" meant in this context. "A computer program?"

"More or less. A simple one." She grinned. "You mean I know something you don't? My day is looking up!"

He scowled at her and turned to accept their wrapped food from the waitress, who winked at him. "Thanks, Diane. Great service, as usual."

"Great service for great people," replied Diane, who was sixty-two and had four cats and three grandchildren. It never failed to impress her how courtly Detective Goren was, even with a woman her age; she usually slipped in something extra for him when she wrapped their food, as a sort of positive reinforcement. "You two be sure you remember to _eat _the food this time, okay? Rumor has it that the last batch grew mold in your break room."

"Deakins," Alex said with a sigh. "He should know better than to tell tales. Thanks, Diane."

"Mm-hmm." She waved the two detectives away with a smile.

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Dan Lowe was waiting for them in his office, feet propped up on the only spot on his desk that wasn't covered with equipment or hardware detritus. He'd shoved his wire-rimmed glasses up into his long hair, where they were now doing double-duty as a headband, and a large notebook computer sat on a what looked like a folded towel on his lap.

He looked over his shoulder as they entered. "Alex, I got started without you. Hi, Detective Goren," he added, not looking directly at Bobby.

Bobby mumbled a hello and hung back as Alex eagerly leaned over the tech's shoulder to see his screen.

"Is this Perl?" she asked, studying the lines of code he'd already written.

"Python. Similar, but a little less complicated. Well, depending on who you ask - it can become a religious debate. But anyway, I've got the databases you need on here," he said patting the laptop, "and I was just writing the file opener."

"Are you opening them both and then putting them in different arrays?"

"Sort of, but what I'm using are actually called dictionaries in Python. They work just differently enough to be annoying."

Goren watched from his position in the doorway, wondering where Alex had picked up this ability to converse easily in tech-ese and how he had managed to work with her for five years without absorbing any of the lingo. Obviously, he wasn't going to be of much use in this endeavor. "Eames?" he said when there was a lull in the conversation.

"Hmm?"

"I think you guys are ok without me here. I'm going to go upstairs and get started on a contact list for witnesses."

"Sure," she said without looking away from the computer. "I'll meet you upstairs when we're done here."

Alex and Dan both listened to his retreating footsteps for a few seconds, then Dan hastily set the computer on his desk and turned to her. "So, what's the non-work news?" he asked eagerly.

She grinned. "You showed impressive restraint waiting 'til Goren was gone, Dan."

"Yeah, I know. What's the news?"

"You know Jack Meyers in the crime lab?"

Dan nodded hesitantly. "A little. Enough to say hello to, but that's it."

"Well," she said, amused at her own gossipy tone, "rumor has it that he's back on the market after being dumped by his boyfriend a few months ago."

His eyes took on a speculative light. "He's tall, right? Blonde hair, cut short?"

"Yep."

"You know him?"

She shrugged. "About as well as you do. Not enough to set you up - but I do have a friend who works in the lab with him who probably could. In fact, it was her who told me he was single."

"Can you hook me up with her? So she can maybe hook me up with him?" he said, wiggling his eyebrows playfully.

"Hmm." She cocked her head to the side, thinking. "Tell you what - we get this script done and run before Goren's done with his list and needs me back, and I'll take you down to the lab and introduce you to both of them."

"Works for me! So," he said, replacing the laptop on his legs, "what's we're basically doing is constructing two dictionaries and and then using a set of nested loops to iterate through them . . ."

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Goren sat at his desk and studied his photocopies of McNeil's notes on Norman Young, Claire Young, and a number of other people who had appeared at the scene.

The young patrolman was well-organized, he'd give him that. A little too well-organized, because with this comprehensive list in front of him, it left Goren nothing to do but alphabetize it and make notes. In other words, busy work. Still, it would be worth it if Alex could pull a name or two out of that parolee list, he reminded himself.

Just as he opened Word on his computer to start typing, Deakins leaned out of his office and called, "Goren!"

Bobby looked up questioningly. "Yes, sir?"

"In here, please."

He tried to remember anything he might have done to get himself in trouble and drew a complete blank. Assuming, that was, that the captain hadn't figured out why Goren and Eames had arrived to work together this morning. He didn't think it was that though - Deakins would look a lot less complacent if he knew about his prize detectives' social life, and besides, their arriving at work together wasn't terribly unusual even under normal circumstances.

With a sigh, he stood up and walked into the lion's den.

"Door," Deakins ordered without looking up from whatever it was he was reading. Only when Goren had obediently shut the glass door did he move his eyes from his desk to the man in front of it. "Sit down and stop wringing your hands, Goren. You're not in trouble."

"Oh." He did as ordered, folding himself into one of the uncomfortable chairs that faced the captain's desk, and then raised his eyebrows. "If I'm not, uh, in trouble . . . then why am I here?"

"I wanted to ask you about Eames."

Bobby blinked, trying to hide his shock. "Uh, what about her, sir?"

"You know what I'm talking about," Deakins said with a wave of his hand. "She's been acting . . . weird recently. I mean, crying in the bathroom? That's not her!"

_Think fast, Bobby. Give no details unless specifically asked_. "I thought she said she'd had an argument with someone," he said noncommittally.

"She did. She also said the bruises on her arms were accidental. She also said Mike Logan had nothing to do with any of it."

"And . . .?"

"And I don't believe a word of it," Deakins said matter-of-factly. "I find it hard to believe that you do, considering that you know her much better than me, even."

"Uh . . . she's been perfectly normal for the past few days, sir. Maybe it was just . . . a female thing."

A snort. "That's what she tried to tell me. I have a wife and three daughters, Detective. None of them have ever spontaneously developed finger-shaped bruises, no matter how much they were PMSing."

Bobby sighed. Obviously Deakins wasn't looking to be convinced that he was wrong . . . so what _was _he looking for? "Would you mind if I ask why you're telling this to me instead of her? I would think it's a lot more her business than mine."

"You're her partner, Bobby!"

"I, uh . . . I'm aware of that."

"And you're not concerned that your _partner _is obviously going through some sort of emotional trauma?"

He sighed. "Captain, you still haven't told me why you called me in here rather than her."

"I've tried her. She won't give him up."

"Uh . . . 'him' who?" Bobby asked in genuine confusion.

" 'Him,' as in whoever put the bruises on her and left her crying. The crying thing happened during work hours, Goren. That means it was probably someone here who did it."

He was starting to get the picture now, and he didn't think he liked what he was seeing. "And you want me to . . . what, snoop around her life and hunt down whoever it is?"

"Well, I wouldn't call it 'snooping' . . ."

"I would." He sighed. "Captain, believe me when I tell you that I'd be the first to her defense if I thought she was being mistreated by someone in MCS, but I honestly . . . I don't think that's the case. Those bruises could be from almost anything . . . sparring at the gym, handling an anxious friend . . ." Shrugging, he went on, "And without the bruises, you have nothing in particular that's suspicious."

Deakins just looked at him for a moment, seeming to weigh his options, before he said, "I think it's Logan."

"Pardon me?" Bobby hoped his eyes weren't as wide as they felt like they were.

"Mike Logan. He's been around her every time something happened, Bobby. And . . . and you know about his temper."

Bobby was silent, trying to figure out what he was going to do with his nosy captain. "I've been around her all those times, too. Why him and not me?" He couldn't believe he was going to stand up for a man he couldn't stomach, but he reminded himself that at least Alex would thank him later.

"Because, Goren," Deakins said, "your temper when it comes to her is nonexistent, and I can't see you making her cry, either. And I would have thought that you'd be eager to protect her from anyone who did."

"If she needed, uh, protection, sir . . . I would be. But she really does perfectly well without me butting in. But," he added quickly when he noticed that Deakins was about to speak, "if it will make you feel better, I'll talk to her."

"I want you to talk to Logan, not her."

"Pardon me?" Bobby said for the second time in five minutes. "What would I talk to him about?"

"Just give him a warning."

Goren blinked. "You want me to strong-arm another detective just based on a hunch?" _Not that I wouldn't mind giving the guy a stern talking-to, but this just can't turn out well for any of us_.

"Just feel him out, Bobby. That's all I want - feel him out, decide for yourself whether you think he had anything to do with it."

He was going to need a particularly _large _beer after today, Goren decided, and Alex was definitely buying after he went through all this to cover for her friend. "Sir, Detective Logan and I don't . . . know each other that well. He's not likely to want to talk to me."

"You talk to people who don't want to talk to you all day long, Goren. Either you do this, or I'm getting someone else to do it, and I get the feeling you don't want gossip about Eames spreading any farther than it needs to."

He gritted his teeth, knowing he was being backed into a corner. "Are you going to tell Eames that you're doing this?"

"No."

"Sir . . ."

"You can tell her if you really feel it's necessary, but either way, you're checking him out."

Bobby sighed and turned to leave, but was interrupted before he got to the door.

"Oh, and Goren?"

"Yes?"

"You and Eames have been fighting a lot lately. This have anything to do with that?"

"No," he said firmly. "Just too many long days and middles-of-the-nights stuck together. We'll settle down." _Middles-of-the-nights, hah, if only he knew!_

"Ok, then go. I want you to check in with me tomorrow about this. Bobby," he added, noticing the detective's set face, "do it, or I will."

"Sure. Can I go now?"

"Yeah," Deakins said, waving him out and returning his attention to whatever was on his desk.


	5. Make believe

A/N: I swear to god, there's a plot in here somewhere. The fluff just keeps getting in the way! Hopefully I can get Logan settled down and start them on the actual investigation soon.

A/N 2: 08ClassicRockChicky08, I know about programming because it's kind of my sub-specialty within my field (linguistics), so I've taken a bunch of class and, well, can't resist showing off and writing it into stories sometimes

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Bobby returned to his desk feeling like he'd just been swallowed up in a tornado and then spit out again. He was supposed to confront Logan? About Alex? He could hardly talk to the man about a case without one of them jumping down the other's throat; how was he supposed to be able to wander up to the guy and explain that oops, there had been this big misunderstanding and while Logan thought Goren was beating Alex, Deakins thought _Logan _was beating her . . .

He groaned. Should he call her and ask how to handle the other man, or should he just go ahead and bite the bullet? If he called Alex, she'd be up here standing between them before anyone could stop her, and that would only get Deakins more worked up.

Ok, so no calling the woman who usually served as their buffer. This was really not going to work out well. There was no possible way it could.

He put his head in his hands and tried to think.

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And that was how Alex found him, twenty minutes later, slumped over his desk looking like he'd just been sucker punched. The excited words she had been about to utter died on her lips and she circled their desks to stand next to him. "Bobby? Are you ok?"

His head jerked up and he blinked at her as if he hadn't known she was there. "Uh, yeah. Just fine."

He was a terrible liar when it came to her. "No, it's not," she said with an exasperated look. "What's going on?"

He shook his head. "Just Deakins taking too much of an interest in your personal life again." Half-truth, that was the key. He could manage to lie to her for a little while if it was only a partial lie. "He called me in to ask about the bruises and the crying again."

"Oh." She leaned against the corner of his desk, crossed her arms, and looked at him with interest. "What did you tell him?"

"The same thing both of us have been telling him all along. Accident, argument with someone, and so forth. It, uh, seemed to appease him." _Oh, Bobby, come on. Could you possibly tell her a bigger lie than that?_

She wasn't totally convinced, but she decided to let the subject drop for the moment. "Well, Dan and I had some success with our script. Wanna hear?"

"Yes, of course!" He raised his head out of his hands and smiled. Any subject change was welcome at this point, but he was especially pleased that it was something that he was definitely interested in.

She grinned back and opened the folder she'd been carrying. "Well, with a little incentive, I got him working fast and we had figured out that all we really needed was to read the two files into independent arrays -"

"Eames."

"- dictionaries, I mean - and loop through each, comparing it with the other. It wasn't too hard, I was never good with programming logic, but -"

"Eames."

"- he explained it really well and we -"

"Alex!" he finally said, putting a hand over her mouth.

"What?" she mumbled through his hand before reaching up to remove it.

"I don't understand a word you're saying and you know it. Just tell me what you found."

She sighed. "You can't blame me for wanting to savor the opportunity to teach _you _something. But ok, fine, if you want to spoil my fun." She slipped a sheet of paper out of the folder and set in front of him. "Those are the people she defended and lost who are also currently out on parole, work release, and such. Twenty-eight. These," she went on, putting a second sheet of paper on top of the first, "are the prosecutors who have records of consistently losing when it comes to her defendants. Three."

He sighed. "Thirty-one people . . ."

"Each of whom we're going to have to chase down to at least confirm their whereabouts," she finished for him. "Think Deakins will give us a couple more detectives if we ask nicely?"

"Who did you have in mind?" he asked guardedly. There was no way Deakins was going to put Logan and Barek on a task that involved Eames, not after what he'd just told Bobby he suspected. He just hoped Alex didn't ask him to.

There was a pause before she sighed and said, "Logan and Barek are probably the best."

He put his face back in his hands and couldn't hold back a groan.

"You want to tell me what's really going on now?" she prompted, pulling his right hand down so she could at least see part of his face.

He was going to have to take care of this now if he didn't want it interfering in their investigation. He lifted his head and looked past her, spotting part of Logan's sleeve protruding from behind the pole that hid his desk, then stood up.

"Bobby? Where are you going?"

He avoided her eyes and muttered, "Gotta talk to Logan."

"Oh no you don't," she hissed, grabbing his arm and pulling him back toward his chair.

"I'm not going to cause trouble." _Or at least, I hope I'm not. "_Just trust me on this, please? You know I wouldn't want to talk to him unless I had a good reason."

"I swear to god, Bobby, if you're going over there warn him to keep his hands off me, I am going to seriously consider castrating you to curb your territorial behavior."

"I'm not. I'd like to keep my anatomy intact, thank you. I'll tell you everything you want to know when I'm done with him, ok?"

"Fine," she said shortly. "Go do what you have to do, but I'm keeping my scissors handy until I get an explanation."

He gave her a comforting smile in lieu of the reassuring kiss he'd have preferred to give her and patted her hand. "Thanks." As he began to walk away from his desk, he stole a glance to the side to see if Deakins would be paying attention to the little show he was about to put on. He found the captain watching with interest as he approached Logan's desk.

Logan looked less than pleased when he saw Goren strolling toward him. He put down his pen, crossed his arms, and looked at the other man suspiciously. "What?"

"I need to talk to you," Goren said as politely as he could.

"If this is about -" Logan began.

"It's not just about Alex. Please," he said through gritted teeth, "come into the conference room with me and I'll explain once we're in there. And no," he added before Logan could ask, "I'm not planning to hit you, either."

Logan glanced at his partner, who was watching their exchange with a hint of amusement in her dark eyes. "Go on, Mike," she urged with a smirk. "You're not afraid of him, are you?"

"You," he said, pointing at her accusingly but with a hint of humor in his eyes, "should keep your eyes on your paperwork and stop worrying about who I'm talking to."

"Sure, sure." She glanced up at Goren. "You going to hit him? Because I really would be obligated to do something to protect him if you did."

"Shut up," Logan muttered as he stood up to face Bobby. "Fine. You've got my attention. Conference room?"

"Conference room," he said with a nod before turning his back on Logan and walking toward the room in question.

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Goren shut the door behind them as the two men entered the conference room, then turned to find Logan standing stiffly a few feet away. "Relax," he ordered. "Or at least try to. You're not supposed to be defensive yet."

"Excuse me?"

"Look out there and see if Deakins is watching us."

Logan raised his eyebrows, but did as he was asked. "Yes. He's standing at Alex's desk but looking over here."

"Good."

"Why is that good?"

Bobby waved him to a chair. "Because, Logan, you and I are about to put on a little, uh, show for his benefit." With that, he lowered himself into a chair that put him in profile to the glass front of the room and looked at the other man expectantly.

Logan sat, reluctantly choosing a chair across from Goren so he could see him clearly. "And what kind of 'show' is that, may I ask?"

"The kind that saves your ass," Goren growled. "Now shut up and listen."

Logan drew his head back in surprise, but said nothing.

"Deakins called me into his office a little while ago to talk about Eames's . . . behavior this week. Don't," he interrupted himself when he saw Logan open his mouth, "say anything yet. Let me finish, then you can vent."

"Fine."

"Good. Thank you. Now, as I was saying, Deakins wanted to talk about Eames. It seems that he's been doing a little too much, uh, thinking about this and he put two and two together and got five. Specifically, he took that fact that you always seem to be around when Alex is . . . upset and the fact that Alex is getting upset in the first place, and decided that it means you're the one upsetting her. Which," he said, holding up a hand to hold off Logan's angry exclamation, "you and I both know is not true."

"Damn right it isn't. I take it you didn't own up to it?"

"No, I didn't, not that he gave me the chance to. He was too busy telling me how I was supposed to . . . talk to you and report back to him whether you're, uh, guilty. Which is why, right about now, you need to start looking offended as hell."

Logan had no trouble affecting that expression. "He sent you to _interrogate _me?"

"Yes, and I couldn't talk him out of it, although I, uh, tried." Without warning, he slammed his hand down on the table, making Logan start. "Which is why we're in here now trying to look like . . . like I'm scaring you into giving me the truth by doing things like smacking the table. In a few minutes, we will walk out of this room and you'll go back to your desk while I tell Deakins that you had nothing to do with any of it."

"Why am I finding myself skeptical of that?" Logan retorted, looking at Goren belligerently. "As I recall, you would have loved to throw me to the wolves a few hours ago."

"Yeah, well, as much as I might want to, I value my skin too much to do it." At Logan's blank look, he sighed. "See the scissors Alex is fiddling with?" he asked, pointing back toward their desks.

Logan glanced warily through the glass. "Yes."

"She threatened to take them to me if I started up with you again. So I'm not. Instead, I'm doing my damndest to get us both out of this unscathed." He paused and stole a look through the window. "He's paying closer attention now. Start yelling."

Logan blinked, then drew in a deep breath and bellowed, "_Excuse me?_"

"Good," Goren said quietly. "This could actually be therapeutic." Then he paused for a second before taking in his own deep breath and replying, "_You heard what I said!_"

"Does Alex know about this?" Logan asked in his normal tone of voice, then raised it again to yell, "_I did not_!"

"No. Which is why she's glaring at us right now." Pause, breath. "_Then how do you explain what I saw?"_

"She's going to kill you before she bothers with me." Logan glanced sideways to see how their performance was being received and found most of the squad room staring at them in fascination. "_I had nothing to do with it!"_

_"_I'm going to pull her in here when I get done with you and explain. Now, look intimidated," he said, standing up and rounding the table to stand next to Logan's chair.

Logan gave him a dubious look, then stood up and crossed his arms defensively. "She's not going to believe you," he said, then shouted for the benefit of their audience, "_Goren!"_

_"_What do you suggest I do, then?" He straightened his posture, deliberately towering over Logan and looking down his nose at him as he made a chopping motion in the air as if he were making a point.

Logan stood his ground and glared up at Goren. "We'll both talk to her." The words were said in a near-friendly tone of voice, but accompanied by a sneer on his face.

"Since when do you care if she believes me?" Goren backed away a step and tried to look skeptical.

Logan shrugged. "You're doing me a favor - I think - so I owe you one." He relaxed slightly as Goren moved away. "Are we done pretending to fight?"

"Yeah, I guess." He waved his hand threateningly under Logan's nose. "But first I have to warn you that if I find out it was you I'll kill you, and so forth."

"I'm shaking in my shoes."

Goren narrowed his eyes. "Don't get cocky, Logan. I beat you in a fight once, I can do it again."

He couldn't hold back a bark of laughter. "Don't delude yourself, Goren. You and I both got our asses kicked by that waif you call a partner."

Bobby glanced out at Alex, noticing the tension in her posture. "Ok, maybe we did. And I get the feeling that if we don't talk fast once we get her in here, she's going to do it again."

"No kidding."

"We should shake hands."

"Excuse me?" Logan said, eyebrows shooting up.

"Well, if I just found you innocent, then we should be making peace."

Logan reluctantly stuck out his hand, saying, "I swear to god, Goren, you get me involved in your screw-ups one more time . . ."

"Yeah, well, believe me when I say that I'm not inviting you to any of my parties in the near future," Bobby retorted, giving Logan's hand a cursory shake.

"Ditto." He glanced at the window. "Should we get her in here now?"

Goren nodded and walked to the door. He took a shaky breath just before opening it - earning himself a snicker from the man behind him - then leaned out and called, "Eames?"

As Alex jumped out of her chair and stalked toward the conference room, the two men exchanged an apprehensive look.


	6. Oddities

A/N: Yay plot! I _told_ you it was here somewhere :)

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Alex would have dearly loved to slam the conference room door behind her, but the two men standing there waiting for her had already given the squad more than enough to gossip about. She settled for closing it so slowly that it made an ominous _click _when the latch engaged.

Turning away from the door, she examined their faces and, to her surprise, found no traces of animosity. Both men appeared more apprehensive than anything else. "One of you want to tell me what the hell that was?" she snapped.

The men looked at each other. "It wasn't what it looked like," Goren began. "It was . . . an act."

"An _act_?" she repeated, staring at him like he had two heads. "You expect me to believe that?" She turned to look at Logan, expecting to find scorn, or at least disbelief, on his face.

Instead, Logan was looking at Goren and nodding. "He's telling the truth. It was an act."

She looked between them, waiting for someone to break and tell her what really happened. When they just continued to stand there placidly, as if everything were perfectly normal and they hadn't just had a screaming argument practically in the middle of the squad room, she crossed her arms and tried to stare them down. "If that's the truth, then I'd like a little more explanation, please."

"Uh . . ." Bobby cleared his throat. "Deakins ordered me to find out, uh . . ." He swallowed. "Whether he . . . Logan . . . um . . ."

Logan rolled his eyes. "What he's trying to say in between 'uh's is that Deakins sent him to find out if I'm the one that's been messing with you."

Alex uncrossed her arms and just gaped at him. "He _what_?" She whirled to look at Goren. "And you _did _it?"

"No! That's our point," he said, backing up a step. Alex's wrath could be a dangerous thing, and he'd prefer to let her unleash on Logan rather than himself if it had to be let out. "I brought him in here and told him about it instead."

"And this whole shouting match was . . . what? You boys just wanted to get out of paperwork for a few more minutes?"

Bobby glanced at Logan, then looked back to Alex. "Well, I had to do something to convince Deakins that I handled it, to get him off all our backs."

"Oh no," Alex said with a shake of her head. "Don't you dare include me in this! What are you guys going to say to the twenty-five other people who just witnessed your little drama? 'Oops, just kidding, please don't tell anyone else that Goren and Logan were having a screaming match over Alex Eames'?"

"Neither of us mentioned your name," Logan protested.

"You think they couldn't figure it out? It's a room full of goddamn _detectives, _Mike!"

"We could . . ." Goren stopped, and turned to Logan questioningly. "We could, uh, mention to a few people that this was about something else. Like, uh . . ."

"Me horning in on one of your cases?" Logan suggested.

"That'll work." They both looked back at Alex, waiting for approval.

She let out a choked, disbelieving laugh. "As simple as that? And are you two actually _agreeing _on something?"

"Yes."

"Uh, yeah."

She couldn't decide whether she was amused at their sudden agreement, resentful of being dragged into it, embarrassed about everything happening in front of an audience, or pleased that the two men seemed to be learning to tolerate each other.

As a result, for the moment, Alex had been rendered completely speechless. So she just stood there, waiting for someone to say something she could respond to.

After a few seconds, Logan took a deep breath and headed for the door, saying, "Well, I've got work to do. It's been fun, guys. Let's not do it again."

When Logan was gone, Bobby took a moment to slowly approach Alex, keeping his eyes on her face for signs of impending explosion. "Are you ok?"

She sighed. "For now. I might kill you later, though."

"That's . . . what I figured. But for now," he went on, checking his watch, "you and I need to go find Claire Young and see what she can tell us."

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They had little trouble finding Claire Young's building, a well-maintained high-rise in the East Village complete with a doorman who insisted on calling up before letting them in. "Close to NYU," Bobby pointed out as they waited.

"And way too expensive for a student to pay for without help from mommy and daddy," Alex added. "Bet you her apartment bears absolutely no resemblance to a dorm room."

He gave her a confused look. "Well, she doesn't live in a dorm. Why _should_ it look like a dorm room?"

"Are you kidding? My apartments were decorated exactly the same as my college dorm room right up until I got married!"

He just smirked as he held the building door for her.

"Apartment 18-B," Alex read off of the print-out she was carrying before looking up. "Are there mailboxes?"

"Yeah. 18-B says . . ." He bent down to look. "Says 'Young' on the top line and 'Meadows' on the bottom line."

"Young and Meadows?" Alex repeated as she pushed the button for the elevator. "I'm not even going to make a 'spring' joke about that combination. Do we know his first name?"

"No."

"You want to split them up?" she asked as they boarded the elevator.

"Assuming they're both there, let's take them together unless we find that we need to split them. It'll be easier for her to talk with someone she, uh, cares about with her."

She gave him a dubious look. "You're going soft on me, Goren."

He just looked away and mumbled a "hmph."

They stepped off the elevator and found themselves in a short hallway with a door at each end. "That one's 18-A," Alex said, checking the brass panel on the door to their left, "so that one must be 18-B. A two-apartment floor? What are these, mini-penthouses?"

"Guess so," he said, raising his hand to knock on the door.

It was pulled open before his knuckles hit the wood, revealing a good-looking young man with dark hair and piercing blue eyes. Bobby judged him to be a few years older than Claire, and noted that his chinos and oxford shirt were both expensive brands. "You the detectives?" he asked, partially blocking the doorway with his body.

They showed their badges and introduced themselves and were allowed to enter, but before letting them to go farther than the a few steps into the entryway, he stopped and blocked their path again. "Tony Meadows," he said, not offering to shake hands. "I know you guys have to talk to her, but I'm warning you now, you upset her and you're out of here."

The detectives exchanged curious looks, but acquiesced to Tony's demand.

As they approached the girl curled up on the couch, who was clutching a mug of what looked like tea, Alex glanced over her shoulder and noticed that the boyfriend hadn't taken his eyes away from them. "Claire, right?" she said, squatting in front of the girl. "I'm Alex. You've met my partner," she added, gesturing to Goren, who stood behind her, "haven't you?"

Claire nodded, still staring into her tea. Tony brushed by Goren and bent over her shoulder, tucking an afghan more tightly around her. She gave him a wan smile and he rested his hand in the hollow between her neck and shoulder, thumb at the back of her neck and the rest of his fingers in front against her collarbone. She lifted one of her hands to touch his and the two seemed to hold a silent conversation before Claire looked up at Alex and said, "Yes, I remember. You . . . need to ask me questions."

"Yes," Goren said, crouching down next to his partner. "We'll try not to take too much of your time; I know you're feeling overwhelmed right now."

Alex did her best to hide her surprise at his words; he was continuing to treat Claire Young more gently than she could remember him treating almost any other witness they'd interviewed. All the same, he was the one who'd dealt with the girl last night, so his opinions on the matter took precedence over her own unless she found a reason to contradict them. For now, she stayed quiet and continued to listen.

"I . . . I'm fine. I understand how this works." She paused and lowered her eyes back to her tea. "In theory, at least."

"Good, thank you." Goren drummed his fingers on his portfolio for a second before continuing, "Did you have a good relationship with your mother, Claire?"

She took a faltering breath and nodded. "My mom . . . she was my best friend. We talked every day. I don't understand . . ." She broke off on a sniffle.

Tony squeezed her shoulder and murmured, "You're doing fine, sweetheart. Just tell them what you know."

Alex shifted her scrutiny to the attentive boyfriend while Bobby continued to question the girl.

"And your relationship with your father? Are you close to him also?"

Claire nodded. "Not as close as with mom, but . . . we get along."

"Her father didn't want her to move in with me," Tony said. "There was . . . tension."

"No, Tony, that's not true. My parents like you!"

Tony sat down on the arm of the couch and kissed her cheek. "They put up with me because they have to take me to have you."

_Have to take me to have you? _Alex thought to herself. That seemed a little forward for any boyfriend to say, but Claire didn't seem to mind. If anything, she seemed pleased to hear it.

"When was the last time either of you saw Mrs. Young?" she asked when Goren paused.

"Every Friday night I drop Claire off at her parents' apartment at five and pick her up at eight thirty," Tony answered. "That's what we did last night, too."

Claire glanced over her shoulder at him, then looked back at Alex. "Yes, I was with her last night until Tony picked me up around eight forty. We were having our . . . girls night," she finished on a choked sob.

"What was she wearing when you left?" Alex asked, remembering the peignoir she'd seen on the body.

"Uh . . ." As if out of habit, Claire looked to Tony, who shrugged. "She was wearing a, uh, nightgown. Silk."

"Was she wearing any jewelry? Rings, earrings, watch?"

"Yeah, she was wearing her watch."

Which she had _not _been wearing when the detectives got to her, Alex remembered. "What kind of watch is it?"

"Bulova. It's, uh, a stainless steel band with a black dial that has four diamonds set in it."

"Sounds nice," Alex said admiringly, raising her eyebrows.

"She loved it, she wore it everywhere. It was a birthday present from my . . . daddy . . ." Claire said, her voice breaking on the last few words.

"Claire," Goren began, drawing her attention back to him when he sensed Alex had exhausted her current line of questioning, "do you know of any enemies your mother might had? People who might want her harmed?"

"I . . . I can't think of anyone who would be horrible enough to kill a person. I mean, I can tell you about the people she didn't get along with, but . . . to _hurt _her?"

"We understand that, but we need to eliminate everyone who _might _have done it before we can narrow our search to who actually did it," Alex said gently.

"Isaac Lawson," Claire said slowly. "He works . . . worked . . . with my mom, and she beat him out for a promotion. Allan Gray, uh, he's one of her big competitors for clients. Christie Miller is one of the . . ." She paused and looked from Alex to Bobby before lowering her eyes and finishing, "She's one of the ADAs; Mom called her her nemesis, but . . . but really, I think she was only joking . . ."

"Any number of Mrs. Young's clients could have had a grudge against her for losing their case," Tony spoke up, running a hand over Claire's hair, when her voice seemed to run out of steam.

"Have you seen any of these people recently?" Alex asked, flipping open her notebook.

"No," Tony answered for both of them. "We would have no reason to run into any of those people, especially the criminals."

"Well," Bobby told him with an sympathetic shake of his head, "we can certainly understand why you'd keep yourself and Claire away from people like that." He glanced at Alex and found that she had already taken her cue and was nodding enthusiastically, affecting a look of disgust at the thought of_ people like that_.

"So, what did you guys do last night after girls' night ended?" she asked conversationally after what she judged to be an appropriate amount of supportive nodding.

"We came back here?" Claire said, sounding like she was asking instead of telling. "And watched some TV and went to bed."

"You both came home together and stayed here together?" Goren asked as a confirmation.

There might have been a pause before Claire answered, but if there was, it was so short as to be almost imperceptible. Either way, she nodded and said, "We either walk or take the subway everywhere, and I don't like to go out after it's dark."

Neither detective commented on the fact that she had a handy, overprotective boyfriend sitting right next to her who would presumably be more than happy to accompany her onto the big, bad streets of New York. Instead, they just exchanged a look and then moved their eyes back to Claire.

"Did your parents get along?" Alex asked after a second.

The girl nodded vigorously. "They really lov- loved each other. I almost never . . . saw them fight." Her verbs were produced haltingly, and it was clear that she was making a conscious effort to speak in the past tense.

Bobby nodded and added, "What about girlfriends? Did she have a close circle of friends?"

"Addie Gilmore," Tony replied without hesitation, "Jacqueline Cabrera, Katherine Butler, Sophie Drake - what?" he broke off, noticing the look on his girlfriend's face.

Claire continued to stare at him for another second, then just shook her head. "He's pretty much got them covered. I don't know how to get in touch with anyone except Sophie, though. My dad can probably help you with that."

Alex felt her partner relax slightly by her side and knew he'd run out of questions for the moment. "That's all we need from you for now, ok, Claire? Here's our card," she said, holding out the item in question. "Please call us with Ms. Drake's contact information, or if you think of anything that might be useful."

Claire drank the last of her tea and nodded slowly. "Ok."

"We'll, uh, show ourselves out," Bobby said, pointing over his shoulder to the door. "Thanks for speaking with us."

Just before Alex closed the door of the apartment behind them, they heard Claire say, sounding annoyed, "To-_ny_!"

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"You notice anything odd about that?" Goren asked as they stepped out of the elevator on the ground floor of Claire's building.

"You mean other than the fact that he kept at least one hand on her at all times and she didn't seem to mind?"

He gave her a sideways glance and grinned. "You're good."

"I know."


	7. Dinner party

A/N: Sigh, I'm having inspiration issues again. Reunion's ground to a dead halt and Kamikaze's not much better...and I'm barely eking out chapters for this baby. It's so frustrating to know where I'm going but not know how to get there!

A/N 2: Yeah so I know exactly two things about Barek: she used to be with the FBI, and she's got a bit of an attitude. Everything else I'm writing into her here is totally my imagination

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They arrived back at One PP around five, just in time to slip into Deakins's office and give him a quick recap of the strange interview.

"So basically, you've got nothing," Deakins sighed after listening to their rundown. "Except a list of yet more people to track down."

"Exponentially-growing interview lists aren't our idea of fun either," Eames reminded him irritably.

He held up his hands in a peacemaking gesture. "I know. Sorry. Have you worked out who you're going to go after first?"

"Her friends," Goren began. "We're going to call the friends first thing in the morning, since they're likely to be, uh . . ."

"Ladies who lunch?" supplied Deakins.

"Right, or else high-profile lawyers who spend their days in court or on the town," Alex said with a nod. "Either way, we gotta catch 'em early or not at all. The potential suspects the daughter gave us should be easier to run down, since we have their places of employment and they'll - presumably - be in their offices for the work day tomorrow. We'll do them after we've set up interviews with the friends."

"We need the husband, too," Deakins said. "And the names you pulled off that parolee list."

"Right," Alex said slowly. "Well, see, since we have _way _too many people on the list to be able to interview them all in a timely manner, we were hoping you could lend us another pair of detectives. Logan and Barek, preferably."

Bobby almost winced at the look that appeared on the captain's face, then fought the urge to hide when Deakins looked straight at him and asked pointedly, "Goren? What do _you _think of asking _Logan_ and Barek to help?"

Alex, glad that Goren had already explained this to her and for once she wasn't in the dark, smothered a smile and watched her partner try to think of a response that wouldn't reveal to Deakins that he'd spilled the beans.

"I think . . ." he began slowly. "That if they're free, they would be . . . very helpful. Logan's, uh, well-intentioned, and Barek's smart."

Alex couldn't stop the tiny smirk that appeared on her face as she listened to him try to think of a compliment for Logan that he wouldn't choke on. "They're both sharp," she told the two men, "and better yet, they're both good interviewers."

Deakins hesitated a second, glanced again at Goren, who nodded slightly, then shrugged. "Fine, they're yours if they're willing, but I want to be kept completely up-to-date. Eames, why don't you go check with them before you leave tonight. Goren, I need to have a word with you."

Wondering how in the world Deakins could believe she'd let him get away with that dismissal, but deciding to take pity on him this time, Alex stood up, gave him an overly-bright smile, and sauntered out of the room without another word.

When the door closed behind her, Deakins turned to Bobby. "Well?"

He shrugged. "Logan doesn't take kindly to being accused of impropriety."

"Meaning . . .?"

"Meaning, uh . . ." He cleared his throat. "Meaning that unless I'm worse at spotting liars than I thought, he didn't do anything to her." Oh, Alex was going to owe him _so _big for this, he reflected as he gave the captain an earnest look.

There was a pause before Deakins sighed and said, "Okay, then. You're sure? You think it's ok to let him work with you two?"

"It'll be, uh, fine, sir."

"Fine. Thank you for checking him out. Now go find your partner."

Bobby didn't have to be told twice. With a curt nod, he was out of the office within seconds and heading for the other detectives' desks, where Alex was standing.

". . . don't know," Barek was saying. "Can the two of them be trusted not to kill each other?"

Alex glanced over at Bobby, smiled a greeting, and nodded to the other woman. "Oh, trust me, they know a hell of a lot better than to do that."

"Yeah," Logan said with an emphatic nod, "Eames works a mean pair of scissors."

"Huh?"

Alex rolled her eyes and leaned forward to whisper into Barek's ear, "I threatened to castrate them both with my scissors if they didn't stop fighting."

"Now _that_," Carolyn said with a grin, "is pure inspiration. I like you, Eames."

"Good, 'cause you're stuck with me and this big lug," she said, pointing over her shoulder to Bobby, "for the foreseeable future - that is, if you're up for it."

"So, what is it that you need us to do?" asked Logan, leaning back in his chair and looking from Eames to Goren and back.

"Interviews," Alex replied, "and lots of 'em."

Logan and Barek both groaned. "Why do you guys get to do the fun stuff?" Barek sighed.

"Because it's our case. When we back you up on one of yours, you can stick us with the grunt work. Besides, it's not like we're asking you to cross-reference databases, which is what _we _spent _our _morning doing," Alex said. "Who knows, one of you might end up interviewing the perp."

Logan snorted. "Not likely. Got a list for us?"

"Not typed up yet," Alex said. "If you guys want to have dinner with me and Bobby at my apartment tonight, we can divvy it up and discuss things then."

All three of her companions stared at her blankly. "Dinner?" Logan finally repeated dumbly.

"At your apartment?" added Barek.

"All of us?" Goren said as though he was sure he'd missed something.

Alex raised her eyebrows. "You guys have no sense of camaraderie, you know that? Yes, dinner at my apartment, all of us. I'll even do the cooking."

Logan and Barek looked at each other and shrugged. "Sure," they chorused.

"What time?" Logan asked.

"How about seven?" Alex said.

"We're going to need direc-" Barek began.

"I've been there before," Logan interrupted her. "You can ride with me."

Her eyebrows shot up. "You know where Eames lives? You've been there before? Am I missing something juicy?"

"No!" Alex almost yelled. Then, moderating her voice, she went on, "There is absolutely _no_ juice here, got it?"

"Got it," Barek said with a crisp salute. "I'll hitch a ride with Logan and will cease any and all speculation until further notice."

Alex nodded. "Good. Bobby, let's go."

"Me?" he asked after taking a second to catch up to what she was saying.

"Yes, you. We need to go grocery shopping."

"I'm your partner, Alex, not a chef," he protested halfheartedly.

"Groceries, Bobby, or you're doing all the paperwork _and _getting all the coffee for the next week."

"Right," he said with a shrug and a grin. "Ready when you are."

"Man," Barek said, turning to Logan, "I have _got _to try that on you."

He grimaced. "I make better coffee than I do dinner."

"My place, seven o'clock," Alex reminded the pair before turning and heading for the elevator with her partner close behind her.

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Six forty-five that evening found Alex and Bobby in her kitchen, arguing over who was going to set the table for their soon-to-arrive guests.

"I'm doing the cooking," Alex argued, hands on her hips, as she stood by her kitchen sink. "You should do the setting up."

"You just dumped a pound of spaghetti into one pot and a jar of tomato sauce into another, Alex. There's no other 'cooking' to be done, except draining the pasta in ten minutes."

"I don't remember you complaining _last _time we did this."

"Last time we did this," he said with a smirk, pinning her against the counter with a hand on either side of her, "we ended up in bed, not eating the results."

"Bite me," she said with a huff, turning around in the circle of his arms to reach for the cabinet she kept her plates in.

He obliged, nipping at her earlobe.

"Bobby!"

"Mmm?" he mumbled as he kept his mouth busy.

She lifted a hand to try to push his head away. "Hey, quit it! If they get here and find us half-naked on the kitchen floor, so help me, I'm never speaking to you again."

"What about totally naked?" he teased, although with a sigh, he moved his mouth from her ear to her cheek, kissing it lightly.

"You're so dead."

"Dead partners don't set tables."

"Dead partners don't get fed, either."

"Slavedriver."

"You," she muttered darkly, pushing him back with one hand as she reached over to stir the pasta with the other, "need to go amuse yourself elsewhere. Clean my bedroom or something."

"Why, are they going to see your bedroom?"

She gave him a not-so-gentle elbow in the ribs. "Just go do something that doesn't involve bothering me!"

"Oh, fine." He reached past her head and retrieved the plates she'd forgotten to take out of the cabinet. "I'll set the table."

"Thank you." As a reward, she tipped her head back and kissed the side of his mouth before returning her attention to the pot.

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The buzzer rang just as Bobby laid the last plate on the table. "Bobby?" Alex prompted from the sink, where she was engulfed in a cloud of steam from the pasta she'd just begun to strain.

"Got it." And there went the rest of his private time with her, he lamented as he made his way to her front door.

"Damn," Logan said when he saw who'd answered thedoor. "I was hoping Alex would let us in."

"She's busy making your dinner," Goren said shortly. "Barek, can I take your coat?"

The brunette smiles. "Yes, thanks." Glancing sideways at her partner, she added, "I bet you hold doors for your partner, too, Goren."

"Carolyn," Logan muttered warningly.

"What?" she said innocently as she handed her coat to Bobby. "Just a simple question."

Well, Goren thought, this was an interesting dynamic. Maybe he wouldn't have to be the one to antagonize Logan tonight. "Alex is in the kitchen," he told the pair as he turned to hang up Barek's coat. Then, trying not to grit his teeth, he added, "You know where it is, Logan."

"Yep. Say, did she slip you a mickey tonight or something? You haven't tried to kill me yet."

"Pardon?"

"Nothing, nothing. Just wondering."

"Move it, partner," Barek ordered, poking Logan in the back. "Don't piss off the host before we even eat."

"He's not the host," Logan shot back. "Eames is."

"He's closer to being the host than you are," Alex said as she emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel. "So I suggest you do as your partner says."

"Yes ma'am. Oh, wait." Logan glanced at Goren, then looked back at Alex and grinned, pulling a box out of his coat pocket. "Brought you a present."

She took a big step back and swung the towel at him defensively. "Oh, no you don't. Whatever it is, give it to Barek. I don't want it."

"But I thought you liked chocolate," he said, widening his eyes innocently.

"I bet if you stopped to ask, you'd discover that she does too," Bobby said, pointing toward Barek. "You really ought to stick to kissing your own partner's ass and leave mine to me."

"Bobby!" Alex managed in a strangled voice. "There will be no, uh, ass kissing of any sort tonight. Got it?"

"Got it," he said with an impish grin.

"Oh, Mike . . ." Carolyn said, deciding that no one was going to offer her an explanation for this strange conversation and that she might as well move on, "I happen to love chocolate." Keeping a completely straight face, she fluttered her eyelashes and snatched the box out of his hands. "Thanks, partner."


	8. Sharing facts

An hour later, Barek used her thumb to wipe a splash of spaghetti sauce off of the folder she was holding. "Exactly how much time do we have to cover all . . . thirty-one of these people?"

"Not long enough," Logan said before either of the other two people could answer. "Am I right in thinking we're doing this to narrow your field?" he went on, looking at Alex with raised eyebrows.

"Yeah." She slurped up a strand of spaghetti, managing to splatter most of her face and chin with the sauce. "Damn."

"Your list is made up of the parolees and ADAs who, statistically, might gave a grudge against Young," Goren said as he absentmindedly handed her his napkin. "You should be able to eliminate most of them fairly quickly; they're just loose ends."

"Abraham Sykes," Barek read off the top page of her pile. "Mikel Donovan, Curtis Pearson . . . Dwayne Harrison. 'Dwayne'?" she repeated incredulously. "Are we still in New York, or did we get teleported to Alabama?"

"I don't think 'Israel Estes' is going to turn out to be a native Alabaman," Logan replied, pointing to another name.

"Karen Durham," Alex read over his shoulder. "Now that's a nice, normal name."

"She's a con?" asked Bobby.

"No, an ADA in Queens."

"You guys want to discuss what else you've got?" Barek asked. "I noticed when I came in that you've got a nice overflowing pile of papers out on your coffee table."

Alex glanced at Bobby, then nodded. "Bobby, why don't you show them what we've got so far while I clean up in here and make some coffee?" she urged.

His eyes narrowed slightly. She wanted him to pass up time alone with her, as brief as it might be, in favor of filling in the blanks for Logan? Hah! "I think they can figure it out for themselves."

"Bobby," she said, glaring at him.

"No, no," Logan said with a smug look, waving his hand dismissively. "I'm sure you need him to help with the dishes, Alex. Barek and I can entertain ourselves catching up on the case while you two . . . clean."

Barek looked at him, blinked, and looked back at Alex. "Would someone _please _tell me what the hell's going on here?"

"Absolutely nothing," Alex said tightly, "except your partner trying to start trouble. Bobby, go show them your damn notes." She gave him a shove to back up the order and started snatching plates off the table.

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All three detectives looked up when Alex padded into the room ten minutes later, two coffee cups in each hand and walking as carefully as she could to avoid spillage. Before she got a chance to ask him to do it, Bobby was already standing up and heading for the kitchen to retrieve the cream and sugar she hadn't had room for in her hands.

"What'd he tell you so far?" she asked Logan and Barek, setting down the mugs on the one small patch of the table that wasn't covered with paper or folders.

"Defense attorney, found beat up and shot in her apartment," Barek recited. "Clean kill shot, but the beating indicates loss of control."

"No, it doesn't. Not necessarily," Logan said with a shake of his head. "I don't agree with Barek. A full beating would be loss of control, yes, but blows that were exclusively to her face, inflicting as much damage as possible only to that area - that takes control, even if we're just talking about avoiding having a stray fist land somewhere else by accident."

"You'd be the expert when it comes to fists," Barek said coolly.

"Ouch," Alex said, wincing. "That was a low blow."

"You heard the woman," Logan said, giving his partner a dirty look. "Play nice."

Barek sighed, then shrugged and looked back at the other woman. "It sounds like you're low on specific leads."

"What was your first clue? The list of semi-random names, or the fact that we had to bring you guys into it?" Alex asked dryly.

"We have plenty of leads," Goren said as he re-entered the room and handed Alex the cream pitcher and sugar bowl. "We just haven't noticed them yet."

"Okay, Confucius," Logan said, rolling his eyes, "but let's stick to the leads that are actually visible for now, huh?"

Alex snorted, earning herself a dark look from her partner.

"I assume you guys've seen the husband and the daughter already?" Logan went on after a second's pause for comedic effect.

"We spoke to the daughter today," Bobby said as he spooned sugar into his coffee.

"She's devastated. Well, or she's really good at faking it," Alex said. "We don't think she had anything to do with it, although she did tell us that she was with her mother until around eight-thirty that night."

"Doing what?" asked Barek.

"Girls' night," said Bobby. "Whatever that entails."

"Chocolate and a chick flick," Barek said with a smile.

"And wine," added Alex with an answering grin.

"And probably some Ben & Jerry's, to go with the wine," Barek finished.

"Geez," Logan said, raising his eyebrows as he looked first at one woman, then the other. "If that's how you girls spend your off time, I don't know how you're not all a pack of fat drunks."

"We burn off all the calories chasing our idiot partners around the city," Alex shot back without hesitation.

"Damn straight," Barek said with a nod, toasting Alex with her half-empty mug. "So she left the mother alone at eight-thirty . . . what was the time of death?"

" 'Between eight-thirty and ten-thirty' was the estimate the M.E. gave us at the scene," said Alex. "We're still waiting on the final autopsy report."

"So if the daughter had hung around a little longer . . ." Logan said slowly.

". . . then the daughter would probably have died too," Goren finished pointedly. "I sincerely doubt that she would have been spared. The girl couldn't fight off Alex," he said, gesturing to the woman next to him, "let alone a perp with a gun."

"You're probably right," Alex said, "but I do feel the need to argue against that assumption, just on principle. On principle for me and Claire both, actually."

"Never tell your partner you consider her weaker," Barek advised Bobby with amusement. "It never ends well."

"Exactly," Alex said with a firm nod. "But Goren's oblivious to stuff like that; I'm used to it. Anyway, the most interesting thing about the daughter, to my way of thinking, was her boyfriend."

"Violent?" Logan asked.

She shook her head. "No, not violent. Just . . . clingy. It made for a weird interview with him hanging over her shoulder. And for the record, the daughter says they both came straight home and stayed there. For the boyfriend to take her home and then get back uptown in time to have killed the mother would be cutting it close."

"So you haven't talked to the vic's husband at all yet?" Barek asked.

"Not more than five words," said Bobby. "At the scene, the daughter was hysterical and there was no time to talk to him, and today Deakins asked us to hit the girl first. We'll get him tomorrow."

"So you've got jack squat," Logan said conversationally.

"Basically," agreed Alex with a sigh. "Which is why either Bobby and I or you two," she said, pointing two fingers at Logan and Barek, "have got to turn up something soon."

"But no pressure, right?" Barek said, rolling her eyes.

"None at all," Alex agreed with a touch of answering sarcasm.

Barek downed the last of her coffee, looked down at her watch, and winced. "Hey guys, look, it's been fun, but I need to get home."

"Hot date?" Logan asked lightly as he stood up along with her.

"Yeah, with my pets," she said with a smirk. "A cat and a ferret who haven't been fed yet; if I don't get home soon, one of them is gonna turn the other into dinner."

"My money's on the ferret," Alex said with a grin. "You want any leftovers? I stuck them in the fridge when I cleaned up."

"Nah, I'm good."

"I'll take 'em," Logan said quickly.

Barek grinned and teased, "You're such a bachelor."

"I can think of at least one way to remedy that," Alex shouted from the kitchen, where she'd disappeared behind the refrigerator door.

"Don't you start with me, Eames," Logan called back. "I know where you keep your skeletons."

"Yeah?" she retorted as she returned and shoved a pile of tupperware into his arms. "But do you know where I keep my big, scary, protective partner?"

Bobby, knowing a cue when he heard one, gave Logan a cheerfully menacing grin.

"Point taken," Logan acknowledged. "Let's get out of here before one of them comes after me, Carolyn."

"I don't know," she said slyly. "That might be interesting to see. And Alex," she added jokingly, looking at the other woman, "my money would be on you."

"Come on." Logan grabbed his partner's arm and tried to drag her out the door before she could protest again.

Barek gave Alex a helpless look over her shoulder as she was propelled over the threshold. "Thanks for dinner, Eames. It was good."

"No problem!" She shut the door behind the pair and turned to Bobby. "Well, that went pretty well."

"He's annoying."

"But you made it through the night without doing more than making snarky comments; it's a new record for you," she replied, patting his cheek.

"Yeah? Do I get a reward?"

"You get to empty the dishwasher," she said with a grin.

"That wasn't quite what I had in mind."

She raised an eyebrow and turned toward the kitchen. "We can negotiate while you empty."

"Oh, no you don't." He grabbed her hand and pulled her back toward him. "Negotiations come _before _I do what you want."

"Oh?" She slipped her hand out of his and looked up at him playfully. "What are you offering?"

He grinned and sat down on the couch, wrapping an arm around her waist and taking her with him as he went. "Take a guess."


	9. Pillow talk

A/N: Oh god, I think I just sent myself into a diabetic coma from all the sugar in this chapter. I pity all who read it . . . keep your insulin handy. In other words...

Caution: there is absolutely no plot in this chapter. It's all fluff. You've been warned!

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"Alex?" Bobby said a few hours later as he lay stretched out on her bed.

She reluctantly took her head off his stomach - which she had declared sometime last week to be "my favorite pillow" - and squirmed up his body so she could see his face. "Hmm?"

"I forgot to tell you that you owe me at least a six-pack."

"Huh?"

He laid one arm across her lower back, holding her hips to his. "After all the effort I had to put in today to save your buddy's ass, you owe me more than just the one beer you promised."

"Uh, Bobby . . ." She put a hand on his chest and pushed herself up so she could see over his head to the clock on her nightstand, then lowered her eyes back to his. "I'm sorry, but I'm _not_ taking you out to buy a six-pack at one o'clock in the morning, no matter how big a favor you did for me."

"Silly girl," he teased as he slid a hand into her hair and pulled her head down towards his. "I didn't mean _now_. Come to think of it, I don't even know where half my clothes ended up, so it wouldn't work out too well even if I _had _meant 'now'."

"Deakins would probably frown on two of his detectives getting collared for public indecency," she said with a grin before submitting willingly to the kiss he was pulling her in for.

When he released her a minute later, he said contemplatively, "I think your bra is hanging off one of the lamp shades in the living room."

"Is the lamp turned off?"

"Uh, I think so."

"Then we're fine. I was never big on burning my bras."

"I don't know," he said, moving his mouth to her neck. "I think I could get used to you walking around without one."

She shivered and twisted her head, trying halfheartedly to dislodge him. "Yeah, but would you want the rest of the world to get used to it, too?"

The name "Mike Logan" popped into his head and he shook his head vehemently. "You've got a point there."

"You know, speaking of Mike - what?" she broke off, catching the surprised look on his face. "You're not the only one around here who can read people. The expression you just had on your face is pretty much exclusively reserved for when you're doing the 'possessive boyfriend' thing, and I only know of one person who's triggered that response in you . . ."

He blinked. "I'm that obvious?"

"Don't worry, it's only obvious to someone who's spent eight or more hours a day alone with you for at least five years. But as I was about to say before you interrupted, did you find Logan and Barek's behavior toward each other as interesting as I did?"

"Umm . . ." She wanted him to psychoanalyze Logan and Barek while he was busy trying to figure out if she'd just referred to him as her 'boyfriend' or whether it had just been a handy cliche?

"Bobby?" She waved her hand over his face. "Earth to Goren."

He couldn't get past the 'boyfriend' comment. Moving quickly, he snatched her hand out of the air and kissed it, then laid it on his chest. "I think we need to talk."

Alex froze on top of him. "Talk . . . about what, exactly? What's wrong?" She'd thought they were just carrying on a casual conversation about their co-workers - what had she said to spark this reaction in him? When he didn't answer her question, she moved to slide off of him, but found herself stopped by his hands on her waist. "Bobby?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to, uh, scare you." He sighed. "It's not important. Forget I said anything."

"You already said it; you can't take it back now." She crossed her arms on his chest and rested her chin on them, watching his face. "Tell me."

"It's noth-"

"Bobby!"

"I just got caught up in a figure of speech you used. It's nothing you need to worry about, really."

"A figure of speech?" She sorted through her short-term memory for whatever figures of speech that she'd used in the past few minutes. "Burning my bra?"

He shook his head. "We're not playing twenty questions, Alex. I promise you it's not something you need to dissect."

"You're lying and you're bad at it," she snapped. "Is whatever it is _that _terrible, that you can't tell me?"

"It's not terrible, just . . . childish."

"Being childish is part of your charm," she said, leaning down to give him a light kiss. "So spill it."

He rolled them over until he was on his side and she was on her back, looking up at him. Propping his head on one fist, he studied her face as he said, "You said I do a 'possessive boyfriend thing'."

She lowered her eyebrows, studying him in return. "Uh-huh. Which part of that are you objecting to? The possessiveness, or the boyfriendness?"

"I'm not objecting. I'm just . . . curious."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"Well it's just . . ." He wrinkled his nose, displaying his embarrassment. "It's a stupid thing to ask, I know, but . . . _am_ I your 'boyfriend'?"

She sighed and looked away from him, staring up at the ceiling. "Whatever _that_ means. If you're asking if you're the only man I'm seeing, then you're stupid for not already knowing the answer. I don't bed-hop."

"I wasn't accusing you of bed-hopping," he said mildly. "I guess what I'm saying is . . . I, uh . . . don't know how to categorize what we have together."

"And it has to be categorized?"

He shrugged. "No, but it's more comfortable for me if it is."

"Give me an example of what a category would be. I'm not avoiding the question," she said, laying a hand on his cheek before he could interrupt, "but I'm not sure what kind of answer you're looking for."

He paused for a moment, then shook his head. "I'm not either."

That earned him an exasperated smile. "Well, then how am I supposed to know how to comfort you?"

"Do I need to be comforted?"

"Can you not answer my questions with more questions?" she said archly.

"Sorry. I guess I was hoping you had . . . a clearer idea of what this is than I've got. Because . . . I don't know, because you're a woman, I guess."

"Look," she said gently. "I'm not any better at this than you, but . . . if you need a word for it, I guess 'boyfriend' is as good as any. You're the only man I can lie in bed with and talk to like this. You're the only man I _want _tolie in bed with and talk to like this."

"Talk to like what?" he asked, relaxing slightly and raising his eyebrows in question.

She grinned and moved closer until she was pressed against his side. "Lying in bed with someone, naked, with our clothes scattered all over the apartment - that all I've done before. Lying in bed, having an awkward, serious conversation - done that. But lying in bed with you, naked, with our clothes scattered all over the apartment . . . and having a serious discussion without feeling uncomfortable - that's new."

"I make you feel comfortable?" he asked tentatively.

"You," she said, moving back to her original position on top of him and straddling his thighs, "make me feel . . . safe. Comfortable. Trusted, and trustworthy. Loved." Trailing her fingers through the hair at the back of his head, she kissed his chin and then his lips. "You make me feel happy."

He was quiet for a long moment before saying, "Alex?"

"Hmm?" she responded absently, trailing her lips along his jaw.

"I make you feel loved?"

"Mm-hmm." Her tongue flicked out, tasting the skin where his neck met his shoulder, while one of her hands began a journey downward from his collarbone.

He inhaled deeply, then exhaled. "Alex?"

"What?" she mumbled peevishly into his skin, wondering why he kept interrupting her explorations.

"I love you."

She stilled on top of him, her forehead pressed against his chest, but didn't speak.

He waited for her to say something, anything, but her silence just continued. "Alex?" he tried again, pushing against her shoulders, trying to urge her to sit up so he could see her face.

"Yeah," she said quietly, resisting the pressure he was applying to her shoulders. "Uh, you caught me by surprise."

"Oh." He needed to see her eyes. He let his hands drop and, knowing she would have to move eventually, tried to wait patiently. "I'm sorry. It slipped out . . ."

She moved up his body until she could bury her face in the crook of his neck, which she did, still not looking up. "Don't apologize."

"Sor-"

She laid a finger over his lips. "I said, don't apologize."

"You're upset," he said tightly. "What am I supposed to do, if not apologize?"

"I'm not upset."

"Then why won't you look at me?"

She took a deep breath, then let it out against his neck, giving him goosebumps that he didn't bother to suppress. "Just . . . give me a minute."

"Look, I shouldn't have started this conversation tonight. We're both tired. Can we just . . . forget it?"

She began to lift her head slowly, as if she was expecting it to be pushed down again. Her hair tickled his cheek, but he was too busy concentrating on what he saw to register the sensation. Her face was carefully blank when it came into view, and he only just restrained himself from apologizing again.

When her face stayed neutral and her mouth stayed closed, he sighed. "Alex . . ."

Her detached expression melted into a weak smile. "I know you love me. It was just really weird to hear it out loud."

He stared at her, unsure what to say to that. "It was . . . weird?"

Her smile widened. "Yeah. Do you want me to say it back?"

"What?"

"Do you want me to say it back? It sounds so contrived," she said with a shrug. "Once one person says it, then the other person has to recite the same line and it sounds silly."

"You . . . uh, you don't have to say anything you don't want to," he said hesitantly, unsure of what she was trying to express.

"Oh, fine," she said with an indulgent grin. "I love you, too. See, doesn't that seem redundant?"

"No."

"Romantic," she accused teasingly, leaning down to kiss him. When he didn't respond to the touch of her lips, she pulled back and took a closer look at his strained face. "You don't believe me?"

"I'm . . . not sure what to think. I wasn't trying to coerce you when I . . ."

"Bobby." She leaned down again, holding his face in her hands. "I didn't feel coerced. You just surprised me, and I was trying to think of how to respond. I mean, think about it - how odd does it feel to say, 'I love you' if you stop to think before saying it?"

He shook his head and tried to shift her off of him. "I don't know. Can we just . . . go to sleep?"

"No, we can't! Look at me, Bobby," she ordered. She wasn't getting through to him. What could she say that he would understand? She searched her mind, managing after a few seconds to come up with an argument in his language: "Now, tell me what my biggest defense mechanism is when I'm emotional or unsure of myself."

He blinked. "Your what? Uh . . ."

"Come on, Goren, you had me pegged the second week we were partnered. This is a no-brainer!" She snapped her fingers in front of his face.

"Sarcasm."

"Exactly. Now replay the last five minutes of this conversation in your mind. I'll wait." True to her word, she removed her hands from his face, rested her elbows on his chest, and just watched him.

"Alex?" he said after a few seconds.

"What?"

"This has _got_ to be one of the least romantic 'I love you' conversations ever."

She bit back a smile and shrugged. "We wouldn't be us if we actually followed the rules. So, do you believe me now?"

He reached up and curled a hand around the back of her neck, drawing her face down to his. "Yes," he whispered against her lips. "Now, what was it you were doing before I went and interrupted you with my revelation?"

"Hmm," she murmured, giving him a seductive smile before moving her mouth down to the center of his chest. "I think I was . . . right about here."


	10. Guilty until proven innocent

A/N: Yay, the plot's back again!

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Gabrielle Young's widower was nowhere to be seen when his housekeeper reluctantly opened the door for Goren and Eames the next morning. A sizeable middle-aged woman, she carefully studied their badges before nodding tersely and opening the door wide enough for them to enter, hissing as they passed, "Portense bien! Mi jefe es buen hombre; no le molesten!"

Alex, who had only a basic understanding of Spanish, figured from the woman's tone that she was admonishing them to behave themselves, and tried to look as harmless as she could.

Bobby, on the other hand, paused and looked up at the woman, then managed a halting reply as he continued to follow Alex deeper into the apartment: "Sabemos que ya está . . . uh . . . desolado. We don't want to make things any worse than they already are for him, ma'am."

"Good. You keep it that way. He is in his office, through there," the housekeeper said, pointing them in the right direction.

They found Norman Young slumped over an expensive-looking teak desk with his head in his hands, a forgotten Mont Blanc pen dangling from his fingers. "Go away," he told the intruders without lifting his head.

"Mr. Young," Alex said, approaching the man and putting a hand on his desk in his line of sight. "We're so sorry for your loss, and I know the last thing you want to do right now is answer questions, but we were hoping you could give us a few minutes."

Young straightened up to face the two detectives, looking as pale and shaken as his posture had suggested he would. "I'm sorry," he said as he tried to compose himself. "Of course. What . . . ask anything you need to."

Bobby glanced at Alex to make sure he wasn't about to step on anything she wanted to say, then looked back at the man in front of them. "How are you holding up, sir?" he asked gently as he bent over the desk to see Young's face, knowing that the man's responses - both spoken and physical - would tell them much about his feelings for his dead wife.

"I'm . . ." He knifed a hand through his blonde hair and sighed deeply. "Numb, most of the time. And when I'm not numb, I want to be. I just can't believe she . . . I don't understand who could kill Gabrielle. She was a good person!"

"Did your wife have any enemies, Mr. Young?" Alex asked. "Anyone who would benefit from her death?"

He took a breath as if he was about to speak, then let it out on a sob, shaking his head, instead. A second later, he determinedly regained control of himself and said, "All lawyers have people who hate them. Former clients, other lawyers who they've made look dumb . . . I suppose Gabby had as many 'enemies' as anyone else, but there was no one who seemed to truly _hate_ her."

"What about her, uh, will?" Bobby said. "Are there any unusual . . . or not-so-unusual, for that matter . . . bequests?"

"No," Young said with a firm shake of his head. "Claire and I are the main beneficiaries. My daughter gets ten percent of Gabby's liquidated assets when the will is executed; the rest goes into a marital trust that's under my control until my death, when it passes to Claire."

Goren blinked, a slight smile on his face. "Well, that was . . . thorough. I'm impressed."

"We were both lawyers, Detective. We helped draft each other's wills."

"Just out of curiosity," Alex said thoughtfully, "does your will specify the same set-up?"

"Yes. Look, could you just . . . skip ahead to the important questions? I'm very tired, and the funeral arrangements . . ."

Goren and Eames exchanged looks. "And which would be the 'important' questions, sir?" Alex asked dubiously.

Young gave her an exasperated look. "Where I was at the time of her death," he began as if he were reciting a memorized list, "whether I own a gun, whether our relationship was in any trouble . . . Please, I want myself eliminated from your list of suspects as fast as possible so you can start looking at everyone else."

There was a long moment of silence before Bobby glanced at Alex, who shrugged, and said, "We'll take the answers to those for now. Let's start with whether you own a gun."

"I don't. And neither does Claire, as far as I know."

"Ok," Alex replied as she began recording his answers on her notepad. "So, how about telling us where you were between eight-thirty and ten-thirty the night your wife died."

"I was at a crisis meeting at my firm. I got called in right after dinner and we went past midnight arguing over the best defense for the Larsen case."

"Larsen? The rapist?" she said in surprise

Young gave her a reproachful look. "Not unless he's convicted."

She tried not to look as repulsed as she felt at that rationalization. "You have people who can confirm the times and that you were there, I assume?"

"Yes."

"We'll need their names," Bobby said, "if you could write out a list for us before we leave so we can contact them, that would be a big help. Now, tell us how your relationship with your wife was going."

Young looked at his hands. "We loved each other. Married for thirty years." He swallowed. "It took thirty years for us to truly start to understand each other, and thirty seconds for it all to disappear."

Alex suddenly found herself fighting back tears at his words. She'd finished crying years ago for the death of her husband, but something about the way Norman Young spoke about the suddenness of the loss had pierced the well-armored weak spot that had remained after she had come to terms with her grief. She instinctively backed up a step, using her partner's body to partially shield herself from the eyes of the stranger they were facing.

Bobby glanced over his should to see what had prompted her movement and was momentarily speechless when he saw raw emotion in her eyes. The Eames he knew was a champion at covering up any emotions an interview might bring to the surface; somewhere in this conversation, something had gone very wrong for her. "Eames, uh, would you mind getting some background from the housekeeper while I finish up with Mr. Young in here?" he asked casually, deliberately providing her with an excuse to leave the room.

She nodded briskly and mentally added another beer to the six-pack she already owed him as she left the two men behind and went in search of the housekeeper.

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He gave her an inquisitive look ten minutes later as they stepped into the hallway and the door of the Young apartment closed behind them. "What just happened in there?"

She shook her head self-consciously, avoiding his eyes. "It's not anything related to the case. I'll tell you about it later."

He considered pushing the issue, but decided that it wouldn't be worth the trouble the action would earn him, and after a few seconds he reluctantly accepted her attempt to postpone the discussion. "Yes, you will. So," he said as they stepped into the elevator, "where to now?"

She checked her watch. "We've got an hour until lunch. 'Lunch,' otherwise known as 'briefing the boss,' that is."

"Takes at least half an hour to get back to One PP from here."

"Not really time to talk to any other witnesses. Should we just catch the train back?"

"Sounds good to me."

They made their way into the subway station and to the A-C-E train platform, which was crammed with anonymous citizens on their lunch breaks. Out of protective habit, Bobby maneuvered Alex between him and a metal support column and turned his back to the crowd. "Do we actually have anything to tell Deakins?" he asked when she leaned back against the column and looked up at him.

"Well, if the husband's story checks out, we can pretty conclusively eliminate him as a suspect. That's progress, of a sort."

"You know," he said, letting his eyes drift toward the ceiling as a thought hit him, "have we stopped to think about how the perp got into the Youngs' apartment? I mean, he'd have to get past the doorman and then get Mrs. Young to open the door to him."

"Not something she'd be likely to do for an ex-client, not long after business hours."

"Right. There also might be a sign-in book with the doorman . . . damnit!" he growled, giving the column a thump with his fist above her head. "Why didn't this occur to me when we were _there_?"

"Because you're human and you got, like, two hours of sleep last night?" she suggested lightly. "Give yourself a break . . . besides, here comes the train. Start worrying about not getting your wallet stolen, instead."

The car they stepped into had been full even before the train pulled into the station, and as the people on the platform attempted to squeeze in, Alex found herself crushed against the edge of one of the doors as she tried to pass through them. She gave the man who'd bumped her a dirty look and elbowed past him, trusting Bobby to make his own way through the crowd.

A few seconds later he appeared next to her, watching with amusement as she tried to stretch her arm far enough to grasp the bar that had replaced old-fashioned hanging straps a few years ago. "I hate these damn things," she muttered as he easily held onto the bar and grinned down at her. "Forget this." She released the bar, meaning to switch her grip to his arm, but found herself launched full-length into him instead as the train lurched to a start under them.

He quickly put his free arm around her, holding her steady. Giving their pressed-together bodies a speculative look, he bent down and whispered teasingly, "This works for me, how about you?"

"You're a hell of a lot easier to hold on to," she replied as she settled her head against his chest. "We're going half the length of the island, though. You're going to get tired of supporting my weight."

"I'll live. Want to fill up the time by telling me what upset you back there with Young?"

"Not particularly," she sighed. "It's not something you'd want to hear about."

"Yes, it is," he countered, tightening his arm across her back. "Come on, Alex - if it cut you deep enough that I could see it on your face in the middle of an interview, then it's important enough for me to hear about."

"It didn't 'cut' me, not really." She didn't look up at him as she went on, "It just . . . he hit a nerve I didn't think I even had anymore when he talked about how quickly she was . . . gone."

"Ah," he said, the one syllable neatly conveying that he recognized what she was referring to but wouldn't push for more details if she didn't want to share them. "Is it something you need to talk about?" he asked cautiously when she didn't respond after a few seconds.

"Not really," she said, wishing she could burrow further into him, both for his warmth and to avoid the massive backpack the boy standing behind her was wearing and hitting her with every time the train slowed down or sped up. "I mean, I understand my response. I just wasn't prepared for it to surface right then."

"Ok." As if sensing what she wanted, he pulled his greatcoat across her back so that they were both wrapped in it. "You can talk to me about him, though . . . I mean, if you ever want to. It wouldn't make me uncomfortable." Well, it might, a little, if he was honest with himself, but that was his own issue to deal with. For her, he would ignore his imaginings about her husband and force himself to just listen.

She nodded against him. "I know." Then, consciously changing the subject to a more comfortable one, she checked to make sure no one was paying attention to them and then went on tiptoe to kiss him lightly. "So, what kind of takeout should we make Deakins pay for?"


	11. Take out, eat in

A/N: Lack of inspiration plus last-second-work-to-do-before-school-breakpanic equals decreased ficcing...I'm trying, though, I promise!

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They decided on Indian food for lunch, and an hour later found themselves, along with Logan and Barek, crowded into their captain's office, which was beginning to smell like curry.

"You've really got to invest in some more chairs one of these days, boss," Logan told Deakins from his standing position a few feet away as he attempted to keep the aluminum container of rice he held in one hand from bending under its own weight while he ate from it with his other hand.

"I told you you could sit on the arm of my chair," Barek reminded him from her seat at the side of Deakins's desk.

Alex shifted her weight in her own chair and tore off another piece of _nan_ bread, grinning at the other woman."Yeah, but you rescinded that offer pretty damn fast after he almost ended up in your lap for the third time."

"Hey, I warned her that it's hard to balance on those skinny arms," Logan said through a mouthful of tandoori chicken.

"And would those be her arms," Alex said with a smirk, "or the arms of the chair?"

"I'll have you know my arms aren't skinny!" Barek protested with a wave of her fork.

"She's right," said her partner, idly rubbing his jaw. "She's got a mean right hook, and you gotta have muscle behind that."

Deakins, who had been ignoring the detectives' casual banter as he concentrated on his chicken tikka masala, looked up at Logan and raised his eyebrows. "Do I want to know how you know how good her right hook is, Logan?"

"Have to keep him in line somehow," Barek said with a casual shrug.

"Feminine wiles can't work _all_ the time," Alex agreed with a matching shrug.

"Yeah?" Deakins said, leaning back in his chair and looking at her with interest. "So tell me this: you ever taken a swing at Goren?"

She looked over her shoulder at her partner, who was standing behind her, leaning one hip against her chair. He paused mid-chew and affected a look of childlike innocence before looking back down at his lunch with more interest than it really warranted.

"Well, no," she conceded, turning back to Deakins, "but that's only because I know better ways to control him."

Logan choked on a piece of chicken, earning himself a wallop on the back from his partner.

"And on _that _note," Alex said hastily, focusing intently on her own food and trying to pretend she didn't hear Logan's loud coughing, "let's get back to talking about our case, shall we?"

"Works for me," Deakins said, propping his feet up on his desk and looking at the four detectives expectantly. "So?"

"Well," Logan began when no one else had spoken after a few seconds, "Me and Barek ran our asses all over Manhattan trying to track down some of these parolees." He gave the paper he was holding a shake. "Which, and I think I can speak for both of us when I say this, sucked. But we spoke to three of them and eliminated five more who no longer live in the area."

"Who'd you get?" Alex asked, setting aside her bread as she unfolded her notepad and pulled out the pen that had been holding her hair in a messy bun.

"Abe Sykes," Barek began, reading off her own copy of the list, "Garrett Grant, and Jerrold Moore. They're all either at supervised halfway houses or way too busy looking for their next fix to worry about some dead lawyer uptown. They all seemed completely uninterested in what we had to say when we caught them. What was it Moore told us, again?" she asked meditatively, turning to her partner.

"I believe it was 'Who the fuck are you? Fuckin' cops, I got a job now and I ain't killed nobody,'" Logan said, mimicking the man's accent. "That was followed by the slightly more polite, 'Now lemme the hell alone.'"

Alex giggled and looked at her partner. "His Brooklyn accent is way better than yours, Bobby."

"I'd like to see _you_ try it," Goren muttered.

"Nah. You do the cigarette thing way better than I ever could. Besides, I'm just too sophisticated to play the part," she said, giving him a teasing pat on the arm.

"Sophisticated," Logan repeated with a snort.

"_Anyway_," Barek went on pointedly, "We also tracked down Miguel Estrada, who got married and moved up to Maine; Paul Novatny, who was deported back to the Czech Republic six months ago, kicking and screaming all the way; Aaron Henry, who, in true genius fashion, got himself shot up in a gang war and died last year; Quinn David, who got religion and moved to South Carolina to become a preacher; and everyone's favorite, Dwayne Harrison - he's in jail down in Florida on drug charges."

"So you've eliminated those eight people from the list, is that what you're saying?" Deakins summarized neatly when Barek finally paused to take a breath.

She blinked. "Uh, yeah. That's the gist of it."

"Good. Keep going like this, we'll get the parolees crossed out in no time."

Logan and Barek exchanged a weary look. "Sure," Logan said with absolutely no enthusiasm, a state made worse by the fact that he was sure he saw a subtle look of smugness on Goren's face when he looked at the guy.

Deakins studiously ignored Logan's tone of voice and moved his eyes to Eames. He found himself staring at the back of her head, though; she was turned to face Goren, murmuring something, and seemed oblivious of being stared at. "Yo, Eames! You with us?"

"Uh, yeah," she replied as she turned around to face him, feeling like a kid caught passing notes in class. "You want our report now?"

"Yes, Detective, that would be a _big _help," he said with a roll of his eyes. "If you're willing to share, that is."

Giving him a dark look, she sighed and re-opened her notepad, even though she didn't really need it. "Ok, well, we talked to the husband at his apartment. The short version of what we found is that the guy's seriously upset by his wife's death, and it looked realistic."

"And he inspires . . . loyalty in his employees," Goren added.

She turned around to look at him again. "Huh?"

"The housekeeper," he reminded her.

"Oh, right. What did she say to us, anyway?" Catching the blank looks on everyone else's faces, she explained, "When the housekeeper let us in, she said something in Spanish that sounded like she was scolding us."

Goren nodded. "She pretty much was. She told us to, uh, behave ourselves, because her boss was a good man and we shouldn't upset him. Which is why I say," he went on, "that Young inspires loyalty. The woman was very protective of him."

"If you want more information," Alex said after a moment, "the long version of the interview with Norman Young is this: we found him in his study, looking like he'd been attempting to work and failing miserably. Didn't want to talk to anyone, but when we identified ourselves he said to go ahead and ask him anything we wanted."

"When I asked how he was doing, he said he felt numb most of the time," Goren picked up when she paused. "He also said that all lawyers have enemies, but he couldn't think of anyone in particular who might have wanted his wife dead."

"I'm totally using that as ammunition against Carver next time he tries to walk all over us," Alex said with a gleeful look.

"Oh, great," Deakins said with a sigh. "Like you guys don't antagonize him enough as it is."

She just shrugged. "Young was also able to tell us the basics of Gabrielle's will."

"Which were?"

She looked at her partner. "Claire gets . . . was it ten percent?"

"Yeah. The daughter gets ten percent of Gabrielle Young's liquidated assets when the will is, uh, executed."

"The rest goes into a . . . I think it's called a family protection trust, where the husband has full access to the assets, but the remainder automatically goes to the daughter when he dies," Eames added.

"I've heard of those," Barek said with a nod. "They're usually intended to keep one parent's assets belonging to their own children in case the spouse remarries or has more kids."

"Interesting . . ." Deakins mused out loud. "So maybe she didn't trust him to leave their daughter an inheritance?"

"I thought that at first too," Alex said with a shake of her head, "but I asked if his will had the same provision and he said yes." She shrugged. "They're lawyers, they do stuff like make trust funds for 'convenience'."

"But, uh . . ." Goren said after leaning forward to look at her, "things started to get more . . . interesting after he answered that question."

"Yeah. Apparently he still thinks we're not investigating fast enough, because he asked if we would skip right to the important questions. Those," she added, amused to see that the room's other three occupants looked as taken aback as she and Goren had felt at the time, "he informed us, were: does he own a firearm, was his marriage in good shape, and where was he the night she died."

"_He _told _you _to ask those?" Logan asked with raised eyebrows.

"Yeah. Kinda puts you off balance, right?"

"I'll say."

"He said he wanted to be crossed off the suspect list as soon as possible," she said with a shrug.

"He denied ownership of a gun," Bobby said. "By himself or his daughter. We'll, uh, check that out when we get out of here. His alibi is verifiable, but we haven't checked it yet, either: he was at a meeting at his firm from dinnertime to past midnight."

"Yeah," Alex said with a sniff of disdain, "a meeting to figure out how to get a rapist off the hook."

"It's the way of the world," Deakins said with a sigh as he fingered his pen. "We catch 'em, bloodsucking lawyers get 'em out of jail, and they so they become our problem again. Did you gets names?"

"Uh, yeah," Goren muttered, pulling a folded paper from his portfolio and leaning over his partner's shoulder to hand it to Deakins. "Now, the last question he gave us . . . he had an interesting answer for that one." He pulled his arm back and rested his hands on the back of her chair; useen by the rest of the room, he let the tips of his fingers touch her upper back lightly.

His touch had the intended effect; the contact headed off the insecurity she might have felt at remembering her unprofessional reaction to Young's answer. "He said they had been married thirty years and they were completely happy, that it had taken them this long to get to that point and he couldn't believe it was suddenly gone."

"Poor guy," Barek said softly.

"You _buy_ that?" Logan questioned, looking from one woman to the other. "He was probably lying through his teeth; nobody actually says stuff like that."

"Oh, I don't know," Deakins said lightly. "I'd say thirty years is about how long it took for me to figure out my wife."

"I agree with Captain Deakins. You're just bitter because no girl will marry you," Barek told Logan with a teasing smile.

"Hey!"

"Oh geez, not you guys, too," Deakins muttered, dropping his head into his hands. "I already have one pair of bickering detectives on my hands, I don't need another."

There was a moment of silence as Goren and Eames exchanged an worried look before they looked back at Deakins and said in unison, "We don't bicker!"

"Save it," he said with a casual wave of his hand. "As long as you don't kill each other or anyone else, I can deal with it. But you two," he added, looking back to Logan and Barek. "I'm watching you. Now, go get back to your parolees and let me know if you find anything. Eames, you and Goren are going to check the gun registrations and alibi?"

"Yep."

"Good. Keep me up-to-date. Now, all of you, out - I have a sudden urge to call my wife."

The four detectives evacuated the room with alacrity, three of them barely managing to make it out the door without bursting into laughter.

Tired of missing the joke, Barek stopped walking, leaning to one side and then the other to block her companions' paths as they tried to get past her. "You guys aren't going anywhere until one of you explains this to me," she said, crossing her arms and fixing a glare on her partner.

"Uh . . ." Logan looked at Alex, who was smirking, then Goren, who looked confused. Turning back to his partner after a second, he pointed toward Eames and Goren and said, "Ask them."

"I'm asking all of you!"

"You know, this really isn't the time or the place for this discussion," Alex said cautiously. "Why don't the four of us go get a drink after work and we'll explain ourselves then."

The two men, blindsided by her suggestion, found themselves looking at each other with wariness. "Uh, Eames . . ." Goren said tentatively.

"Sounds like a plan," Barek interrupted. "But if you back out, I'm willing to play dirty to get an answer."

"Sure," Alex said, her face relaxing into a smile. "Meet us back here at quitting time, ok?"

"Works for me." She looked at her partner, who looked like he was trying to plan an escape. "Come on, Logan. Let's go chase some more junkies."


	12. Details

Half an hour later, Alex settled into a chair in one of their interview rooms, facing an attractive black-haired woman who looked like she might own stock in Botox. Jacqueline Cabrera's patrician features were pulled just a smidge too tight, in Alex's opinion, and rather than making her look younger than her fifty-odd years, the cosmetic work had just given her a slight air of desperation.

The money invested in the woman's face was matched by the money invested in her clothing. Even with her relatively untrained eye, Alex noted a pair of charcoal gray Michael Kors trousers, a white knit Escada shell, and a pale pink fitted blazer by St. John. The whole thing had probably cost the woman over two thousand dollars, and that was without counting shoes or jewelry.She glanced over her shoulder to where Goren stood, leaning between the two walls of his favorite corner. When they finished with Mrs. Cabrera, he would probably be able to give her a complete accounting of each piece and its value, she reflected, trying not to smile at the thought.

"Mrs. Cabrera," she began gently, "thank you for coming to speak with us today."

The woman shook her head, her calm facade collapsing into an expression of bereavement at the sound of Alex's voice. "It's . . . Don't thank me. Just please, tell me there's something you can do to catch that . . . that _bastard_."

"We're still trying to assemble the facts at this point, ma'am, but I can promise you that we're going to do everything we can to find the person who killed your friend. If you're ready, let's start with how you knew Mrs. Young."

"We . . . went to college together. We were roommates senior year, and then we went into similar lines of work here in the city."

"So that would make it . . . what . . . twenty years that you've known each other?" Goren asked, managing a tone of complete earnestness although he knew that it was more like thirty years that the women had been acquainted.

His subtle compliment hit its mark when the woman cracked a weak smile and waved her hand at him. "No, unfortunately. Closer to thirty."

Alex refrained from rolling her eyes, knowing that behind the glass, Deakins was probably yukking it up enough for all of them at Goren's deliberate flattery. "So you met her around the same time she began her relationship with Norman Young?" she asked. "He told us they'd been married about thirty years."

She nodded. "Norman was pre-law with us. They started dating our junior year, got married right after graduation."

"So you . . . continued to socialize with Gabrielle and Norman, then?" Goren asked. "Right up until, uh, recently?"

"Yes. Samuel - that's my husband - and I, we used to have dinner with Gabby and Norm every few weeks."

"How did Gabrielle and her husband get along when you saw them?" Alex asked. "Were they the type of couple who fought a lot, were they very affectionate . . .?"

"They were . . . they were, well, understated. I never saw them be cold to each other, even when they happened to argue in front of us, but they weren't . . . obvious about their relationship in public, either."

"So they were an, uh, ideal couple?" Goren asked, injecting a note of wonder into his voice. "That's, uh, impressive. Usually we . . ." He glanced at Alex, shrugged humorously, and looked back at the other woman. "Well, usually we only see the relationships that go bad."

"They loved each other," she said firmly. "I'm as sure of that as I can be from what I knew about both of them."

"Ok," Alex said easily. "We're just trying to fill in all the blanks that we can. So, Mrs. Young's relationship with her husband was solid . . . did she have any personal problems with anyone else? Anyone - friends, family members, co-workers . . ."

"Are you asking who might have killed her?" Mrs. Cabrera asked cautiously.

"Well, that's the ultimate goal," Alex replied, "but for now, I'm interested in anyone you can think of. It will give us insight about her character."

"It's called, uh, victimology," Goren supplied from behind her. "Understanding the type of person the victim was helps us form a theory about what type of person might have wanted to harm her."

"I _watch _CourtTV, Detective," Mrs. Cabrera snapped, then immediately looked aghast and put a hand to her face. "I'm sorry. I'm just so . . . on edge . . ."

"It's fine, Mrs. Cabrera," Alex told her, drawing the woman's attention away from Goren, who she knew needed to observe the woman to prepare his next volley. "We know that this is a very hard time for you, but . . . _can _you tell us about any personal problems Mrs. Young might have been having?"

The woman sighed deeply. "She didn't get along with Isaac Lawson. He worked with her, but he resented her for getting a promotion before he did. She was uncomfortable with the tension, and I know she tried to talk to him at least once about it and he blew her off."

"Would he have gained by her death? Would the promotion have passed to him or anything?"

"No. No, I don't think so, but firm business tends to stay firm business, so don't rely on my opinion."

"Ok," Alex replied, making a note on her pad. "Anyone else Mrs. Young had problems with?"

"She had a friendly rivalry with Allan Gray at Gray, Smith, & Williams, but it was just that - friendly. They used to meet for lunch to see who could win the most unlikely cases."

"Is that 'Gray' spelled G-R-E-Y?" Alex asked idly, fiddling with her pen.

"No, with an A."

"Got it. Can you think of anyone else?"

The woman shook her head a little too quickly, which didn't go unnoticed by the detectives. "Mrs. Cabrera?" Goren said from behind her. "There's . . . someone else. Someone you . . . someone you don't want brought into this?"

"No. No, I -"

"How was her relationship with her daughter?" Alex broke in pointedly, interrupting the woman's protestations. "Claire's boyfriend implied that her parents didn't approve of him . . ."

Mrs. Cabrera's mouth snapped shut and she looked at Alex in surprise. "Claire's a good girl. She wouldn't . . ."

"Victimology, ma'am," Goren repeated softly.

"Claire and Gabby loved each other. Very much. They . . . Gabby sometimes called Claire her best friend, and she said it so proudly . . . she was so happy that they had that . . ."

"But something went wrong," Alex said.

"Not . . . not completely. It was just, when Claire met Anthony, she didn't have as much free time to spend with her mother. I mean, that's normal for a young girl, and Gabby understood that, but after a year it hadn't tapered off. They still had their Friday night get-togethers, but they started getting . . . shorter. Before, Claire would spend the night in her old bedroom some weeks, but in the last year or so, she was leaving earlier and earlier. Usually she said she had to do something with her boyfriend."

"So Gabrielle felt . . . abandoned?" Goren suggested. "Resentful of Claire's relationship?"

"Sounds to me like she'd be frustrated more than resentful," Alex said, turning around to face him. "The daughter she loves finds someone who loves her . . . if it were me, I'd be frustrated at losing her, but feel guilty for not just being happy for her."

"Yes," the woman said with an vehement nod, "exactly. And that's why she never mentioned it to Claire, as far as I know. She told herself that it was just part of Claire growing up."

"So . . . Claire wasn't aware of her mother's feelings?" Goren asked, wrinkling his brow.

"I . . . don't know. I kind of got the feeling that she knew about it, but I hardly ever see her in person, so . . ."

". . . so you don't feel confident saying," Alex finished. "That's understandable. How about this: based on what you know about Claire, how do you think she would react if she thought her mom disapproved of her dating Anthony?"

Mrs. Cabrera closed her eyes for a moment, looking like she was gathering her thoughts. "Claire's at that age where . . . where she wants to be independent, but at the same time she still wants her 'mommy' sometimes. I think if she felt like Gabby disapproved . . . she'd pull away."

" 'I'll hurt you before you can hurt me'," Alex said with a knowing smile. "I remember that stage."

Goren gave her a surprised look - _You were once that vulnerable! - _while Jacqueline Cabrera nodded and returned Alex's smile. "Seems so silly when you're my age looking back at it," she said with a sigh. "But that's my guess about how Claire would act."

Alex nodded. "It makes sense. Thank you. Can you think of anyone else Mrs. Young may have been at odds with?"

The woman shook her head. "No . . . really, Gabby got along with most people. She wasn't a snob or anything."

Alex glanced over her shoulder at Goren, who shrugged to indicate that he had no more questions. Turning back to Mrs. Cabrera, she handed the woman a card and asked her to call them if she thought of anything else that might be helpful.

She agreed, and the two detectives leaned back in their chairs and watched a uniformed officer escort Jacqueline Cabrera to the elevators. "Interesting," Alex said thoughtfully, resting her chin in her hand as she studied her notes. "What do you think about the daughter?"

Before Goren could answer, the door of the room opened as Deakins and Carver walked in. "Well?" Deakins said expectantly, looking at Goren.

He shrugged and gestured to his partner. "Ask her. She's got the experience with female angst."

Two pairs of eyebrows shot up at the dismissal, but Deakins moved his eyes to Alex and obediently asked, "What do you think of the daughter now?"

She pushed her hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ears and glanced at Goren. "I think I know who we're inviting to visit us tomorrow morning. I also want to speak to Claire's friends. They're much more likely to have dependable knowledge of her feelings."

Deakins sighed. "Women. You know," he said, looking from Carver to Goren as though looking for support, "I have a hard enough time with my girls at home, I don't need this crap here, too."

"Well, then," Alex said archly, "you should be glad you have me to take one for the team." Giving the captain an overly bright smile, she stood and brushed past him, leaving three surprised men behind her in the room.

Goren smirked. "For once I'm not the one who made the, uh, faux pas. You should know better than to complain about women in front of Eames."

"Yeah, well, you're the one who has to handle her. So," he said, waving Goren out of the room, "go do it. Oh, and I want a transcript of this interview. What's next?"

"For today, catching up on paperwork and waiting for, uh . . . Logan and Barek to report back."

"How's that going?" Deakins asked slowly, trying to be cryptic but instead just earning himself a suspicious look from Carver.

Goren gathered up his portfolio and stood. "It's going well. Eames and Barek seem to have made friends. Now, if you'll excuse me . . ." He nodded distractedly to the men and followed his partner's path out of the room.

As they watched Goren's retreating back, Carver turned to Deakins with raised eyebrows. "Well, _that _was odd."

"Yeah, well, welcome to my world," Deakins said with a sigh.


	13. Alcoholic clarity

A/N: Well, we've gotten to that wonderful period known as "all my end-of-semester papers are due in 2 weeks," so I'm warning you now that my writing will probably be seriously slowed down from now until mid-December (er, if you hadn't already noticed, that is).

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"I wish he wouldn't do that," Alex muttered without looking up when Goren dropped his portfolio on his desk across from her a few seconds later.

"What? Talk about women?"

"Talk about women as if being female is a disease."

"You know he didn't mean any harm," he said, dropping into his chair and watching as she continued to scowl at a blank legal pad. "I think he just gets surprised when you come up with . . ." His voice trailed off as he realized he was about to step into dangerous territory and perhaps some tact was in order.

"What?" she said with a sigh, finally lifting her head to look at him. "He gets surprised when I come up with the good idea instead of you? Don't act like I don't already know that's what you meant."

He didn't want to have this conversation. Not here. Actually, not anywhere, since he knew she was right about Deakins. Although their boss treated them both with respect, sometimes it really did seem that he considered Goren to be the detective with the specialized skill set and Eames just the intelligent 'support staff.'

"Yeah, exactly," she said, watching the apprehension appear on his face and knowing what he was thinking. "Forget it, there's nothing either of us can do about it. Is it time to go home yet?"

"Home?" asked Logan with a snort as he approached her desk. "I thought you and Barek were forcing us to socialize."

"Oh. Right." She ran a hand through her hair and tried not to groan. "Is it time to go to the bar, then?"

"It is as far as I'm concerned," Barek said from a few feet away, shrugging on her coat as she walked toward them. "In fact, it's past time. Where did you want to go?"

"How about O'Malley's?" Logan suggested, naming an old-fashioned pub a few blocks away.

"Let me guess," Barek said, eyeing him disdainfully. "You're too manly to touch anything but beer or whiskey, either, right?"

"I wonder what he'd do if we bought him a cosmopolitan," Alex said with a grin.

"What's that?" asked Logan. When he received incredulous looks from his companions, he raised his eyebrows. "What? It's an honest question."

"O'Malley's it is," Alex announced, eager to get out of the building before someone made a joke they didn't want the rest of the squad to hear. "Let's go."

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As the quartet stepped into the darkened interior of O'Malley's pub ten minutes later, Barek turned to Goren and said, "I bet even you know what a cosmopolitan is, right?"

Bobby blinked. "Er . . . yes."

"He's actually a pretty good bartender," Alex told her.

"Yeah, from what you _remember_," Logan snorted.

"Excuse me?"

"Well, if you're talking about the night I think you are, you were already on the way to getting drunk when I called you at home," he explained. "Somehow I think that your memories of Goren's bartending skills would be a little fuzzy."

Alex glared at him as she felt her partner tense beside her. "You have a big mouth, Logan."

"That's it," Barek announced, crossing her arms and somehow managing to glare at all three of them at once. "Now you're just doing it because you know it annoys me." She made a show of stomping to the nearest open table and sitting down, watching as they all followed suit. "Now," she went on when everyone was seated, "the three of you have some weird thing going on. I'm not sure I won't be traumatized once I find out what it is, but you're going to have to tell me anyway."

Alex, carefully avoiding Logan's eyes, looked at Bobby and found him looking back at her helplessly. Great, all the explaining was going to fall to her - as usual. With a sigh, she turned back to Barek. "Logan and Goren don't like each other."

"I know _that_," Barek told her. "Try for something I _don't _know."

"Well, they don't like each other because of me," Alex went on obligingly.

"That's not -!" Goren said, appalled. "It's not your fault!"

She poked him in the arm. "Let me finish, would you? Now, as I was saying, they don't like each other because of me. Not because of anything I've done, mind you," she added, "but because Logan's a prankster and Goren doesn't know a joke when it hits him in the face."

"Hey!" Bobby exclaimed, giving her a wounded look. "I can recognize jokes just fine."

"Not when they come in the form of a box of chocolates, you can't," Logan told him with a smirk.

"Well, that was -"

"Boys!" Alex said, holding up her hand to stop them. "This is what I'm talking about," she said to Barek. "They don't understand each other. So anyway, the basic story is this: Mike thought it would be fun to make it look like I had a secret admirer. Unfortunately, he chose a really - and I mean _really _- bad night to put his plan in motion and show up at my apartment."

Barek looked from Alex to Bobby, raising her eyebrows. "Uh-huh. I think I'm starting to get the picture."

"You see, every now and then, when he's not paying attention, Bobby runs into this little thing called emotion, which is less than logical."

Goren cleared his throat loudly. "I'm sitting right here, Alex."

"I know," she said with a shrug. "If you've got a better explanation, feel free to stick your oar in any time." When he didn't answer, she smiled. "No? Good. As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, he's not so hot with illogical thoughts."

"Such as jealousy?" Barek asked with a slight nod.

"Exactly."

"Ok, I'm with you so far, but tell me this: does he have the right to be jealous in the first place?"

The two men, surprised by the question, exchanged a puzzled look. "Who gets to assign that right?" Logan asked. "Because whoever it is, I need to give them a good talking-to about my last girlfriend."

"He does have the right," Alex acknowledged to the other woman, ignoring Logan's remark. "But only barely."

"Barely?" Bobby repeated. "Why 'barely'? And what do you mean 'I have the right,' anyway? I thought you were . . . completely against any kind of possessive behavior on my part."

"You two really just aren't following this, are you?" Barek asked disbelievingly, looking from one man to the other.

"Well I was fine until you started going on about jealousy and assigning rights," Logan said, crossing his arms defensively.

"Men," Alex said with a sigh. "I need a drink. Come with me to the bar, Carolyn?"

"Oh, come on," Logan groaned as his partner nodded and stood up. "First girls have to go to the bathroom together, now you have to go to the bar in packs, too?"

"We're going to talk about periods and childbirth," Alex told him mock-confidingly, patting his shoulder and giving him a teasing smile. "You don't want to be around for that."

Logan shuddered theatrically and said nothing more as the two women disappeared. When they were out of sight, he turned back to Goren and asked cautiously, "Did you know what they were talking about?"

"I don't . . . think so," Bobby replied slowly. "But I get the feeling I should have."

"Ditto," Logan said with a sigh. "Hey, you drinking tonight?"

"If I want. I took the train today."

"Me too." Logan raised his hand to signal a blonde waitress as she strolled by. "Hey, hon?"

The girl paused and looked at the two men, taking their measure within seconds - a skill she'd had to pick up fast when she started waitressing. They seemed nice enough, and although they were sitting at the table alone, two other chairs next to them bore signs of their dates. Guys who brought dates usually behaved themselves fairly well, and those that didn't behave, well . . . the dates were usually on her side when it came down to it. "Hi there," she said, giving them a smile as she moved closer. "You guys been served yet?"

"No, we haven't, Laurie," Logan said, reading her name tag and then looking up to give her an answering smile, "but we were hoping you'd help us out with that."

"Sure. What can I get you?" She hated people who used her name when they didn't know her, but the guy hadn't sounded offensive - at least yet - so she'd let it slide.

"Guinness?"

"Draft ok?"

"Perfect," he said with a grin.

Laurie forced herself not to roll her eyes at the guy's attempt at flirtation as she turned toward his companion. "And how about you, sir?"

"A Guinness draft will be fine for me too," Bobby said, cocking his head slightly to the side as he looked at the waitress. Her slight build reminded him of Alex's, although her long brown hair didn't. But there was something completely unlike Alex in her posture . . . something that caught his eye. She was standing a little bit too stiffly, as though she were being careful about where she allowed her weight to rest. "Are you ok?"

"Excuse me?" she asked, taking a step back.

"You're just . . .uh . . ." He waved his hand aimlessly. "You're standing with all your weight on your left leg, and you limp a little when you walk. I was just . . . wondering."

She looked to Logan as if to ask, _Is this guy for real_? He grinned and gave her a shrug.

"I'm fine," she told Bobby tersely. "Thank you for asking." _And thank you in advance for not creeping me out any more tonight, mmkay? _

"Oh. Ok. I didn't mean to, uh, disturb you," he said, annoyed with himself for scaring her. "Sorry."

"Bobby?" Alex said from a few feet away, watching the waitress beat a hasty retreat as she and Barek made their way back to the table. "What did you say to that girl? She looks like you goosed her."

He swallowed. "I didn't . . . I just asked if she was ok, that's all. Uh, what's this?" he asked as she set a martini glass down in front of him.

"Cosmopolitan," Barek said with a grin as she set an identical drink in front of Logan. "We figured you guys should give them a try."

"But it's . . . pink," Logan said, poking at the glass hesitantly, as if he expected it to poke back.

"And you're clueless," Alex said with a grin. "Try it, you might like it. You too, Goren."

"But we already ordered . . ."

"Guinness?" Barek supplied as she watched the waitress approach with two pint glasses. "For both of you? Could you _be _any more stereotypical?"

"Well, Mike could," Alex answered for him. "Believe me. You should see him do his He-Man act." She thought she heard a giggle from the waitress as the girl set the glasses on the table and headed back to the bar.

"His _what_?" Barek barely restrained herself from spitting a sip of hard cider across the table. As she managed to gulp down the mouthful instead, she noticed that her partner was doing almost the same thing with his beer.

"Why don't you ask him," Alex said decorously, taking a sip of her own beer. "He gets real pissed if he sees any guy other than himself lose his temper."

"Alex," Logan rebuked sharply. "Don't -"

He was cut off by Barek. "What's she talking about?"

"She's not talking about anything," he said quickly. "She's just trying to get me in trouble."

Goren snorted from his seat across the table.

"Oh, you don't get to laugh," Alex told him coolly. "Your act is as bad as his."

"_I'm _not the one who threw the first punch," Logan huffed. "I don't know why you're trying to blame this on me." He took a large gulp of his beer and glared at her.

"Wait, wait," Barek said, holding up both hands and looking from Goren to Logan. "You two got into a _fight_? Like, a fist fight?"

"They would have, if I hadn't put a stop to it," Alex told her. "But I managed to get them apart before it got bad. I swear, some people have no self-control."

Goren gave her a dirty look. "That's low."

"You _hit _him?" Barek asked Goren, unwilling to let go of this fascinating bit of information.

"I was provoked," he said shortly.

"Yeah, you were 'provoked' because you didn't get your way," Alex said, although her harsh words were belied by the way she leaned slightly into him and rested her hand on his knee, communicating that she was only teasing.

"No, I was provoked because . . . oh, never mind." He looked down at his Guinness, then at the cosmopolitan the women had brought him. "Is this cranberry juice in here?" he asked as he examined the pink liquid, reaching out and twirling the stem of the glass to avoid having to actually pick it up.

"Ok, so let me get this straight," Barek said, not bothering to answer his idle question when she noticed that Goren and Eames both appeared to have lost the thread of the conversation. "You and Goren," she said, nodding at Alex, "are . . . an item. You and Mike are not. However, my idiot partner has been doing his best to make _your_ idiot partner think that you and he _are _an item?"

"That's about the gist of it, yeah."

"Numbskull," Barek accused her partner, smacking him on the arm. "Pick a fight with someone who isn't capable of killing you just by stepping on you, if you have to pick a fight with someone."

"He won't listen, trust me," Alex said. "He thinks this is funny - mainly because he knows I won't let Bobby kill him, so he's safe."

"I could if I wanted to," Bobby muttered from beside her. "I just . . . don't consider him a threat anymore."

"Yeah," Logan said with a snort, "because you set me up to be killed by Deakins instead."

"Hey," Alex protested, "he didn't do that on purpose, and he saved your ass from Deakins, when it came down to it. And he doesn't consider you a threat because I finally beat into him the fact that I'd much rather kill you than kiss you."

"Whoa," Barek said, faking a shudder, "let's not mention Logan and kissing in the same sentence, ok?"

"Why not?" Alex said, sensing an intriguing undertone in the other woman's speech. "I hear he's a pretty good kisser."

"What?" said Logan, dumbfounded.

"_What_?" echoed Goren, looking at her with slightly narrowed eyes.

"You," she said, pointing to Logan, "need to realize that women cops gossip almost as much as almost any other kind of women. And you," she went on, elbowing Bobby, "need to take that look off your face before I start thinking you don't trust me after all."

The re-appearance of the waitress preempted Bobby's reply to that. "Hi guys. Everything ok?" she asked, replacing the empty bottles in front of Alex and Barek with full ones and glancing at the untouched cosmopolitans in front of the two men.

"Everything's good," Alex told her with a smile, "except that our friends here" - she pointed to Logan and Goren - "are afraid to taste their cosmos. They claim they're too pink."

The waitress gingerly shifted her weight and offered the table her polished 'friendly waitress' smile. "Oh, the men always claim they won't like it - until they try it. Then, they're hooked. Go on, guys. I'm sure your ladies will buy you new drinks if it turns out you really don't like the cosmos."

The way the girl was moving didn't go unnoticed. While Goren nudged Alex's left shoulder, Barek caught her eye and pointedly shifted her own eyes toward the girl. "Are you alright . . . uh . . , Laurie?" she asked tentatively.

Laurie let out an exasperated breath. "I'm _fine_, just like I told your friend a few minutes ago. I twisted my knee the other day and it's stiff, that's all."

"Twisted your knee," Goren repeated sympathetically. "Wow, that must be . . . how'd you do it?"

"Rock climbing, upstate," she said, deciding that these people wouldn't let her go until she gave them an explanation.

"You know, I've always wanted to try that," Alex said in complete honesty. "It looks like it'd be such a rush, to get to the top and know you hauled yourself up all that way under your own power. Did you have fun, at least before you got hurt?"

The girl shrugged. "Uh, well, I'm not a big fan of heights, so I'm not the best person to ask."

"You don't like heights, but you went rock climbing?" Barek asked. "Talk about determination, I'm impressed."

"Yeah, well, don't be. I only went because my boyfriend wanted me to. It's not my idea of a fun pastime."

"Now that's a dedicated girlfriend!" Logan exclaimed with a grin. "I hope he was properly thankful."

Nervousness flickered in the waitresses's eyes for a moment before she hid it. "Oh, no, it's not . . . he doesn't need to thank me. It's just part of being with him, you know? I have to take the stuff I don't like if I want to have him."

Bobby gave her a thoughtful look and cautiously picked up his cosmopolitan. "Well, we'll let you get back to work. Thanks for the conversation, Laurie." He managed what he was pretty sure was a generically pleasant smile, as did Alex beside him, until the girl had turned and walked away.

When Laurie was out of sight, Goren and Eames looked at each other. "Did you hear . . ." she began.

". . . that she 'has to take it to have him'?" he finished with an affirmative nod. "Yes. You think it's . . .?"

"Makes sense," she said. "They kind of have the same air about them."

"Yo," Logan spoke up, waving a hand between them. "Would one of you care to share with the rest of the class?"

"Oh, sorry," Bobby said distractedly, then looked at Alex, knowing she could offer a more coherent explanation than he could.

Taking her cue, she looked at Logan. "What was your impression of that girl's relationship with her boyfriend?"

"Jackass," Barek supplied immediately. "He knew she was afraid of heights but made her think that she had to go rock climbing to keep him with her?"

"Right," Alex said with a nod. "Well, remember how I was saying that Claire Young's boyfriend seemed really clingy?" When Logan and Barek both nodded, she went on, "Well, at one point during the interview, he said something along the lines of 'her parents had to take him to have her.' That just seemed a little weird at the time, but listening to the waitress here . . . put it in context, I guess."

"Control freak?" Barek guessed.

"Among other things. I'm starting to lean toward emotionally abusive, now that I think back to what they were acting like when we talked to them."

"Well, great," Logan said, sounding slightly confused, "but what does that have to do with who killed her mo-" He abruptly broke off his own statement as the possibilities began to dawn on him. "You think the mother knew?"

Goren glanced at Alex, then back at Logan. "Judging by what the mother's friend told us this afternoon, it's a definite possibility."

"So . . . what?" Barek asked. "You want to leave off chasing down the parolee list and focus on friends of the mom and daughter, to look for motive?"

"I think," Alex said, speaking slowly to allow Bobby to break in if he wanted, "that that's starting to sound like a very good idea."

"Hey," Logan said with a shrug and a grin, "anything's better than ex-cons, junkies, and pond scum defense lawyers."

"Agreed," Barek said, laughing, as she hoisted her bottle in as toast. "To alcohol-fueled case-breaking!"


	14. Walking in step

A/N: Mmm, gotta love my unique kind of fluff-that-wants-to-be-smut-but-just-isn't, eh?

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"Your place or mine?" Alex asked, playfully bumping his hip with hers as she and Bobby stood outside O'Malley's, watching Logan and Barek disappear toward their homes in two different directions.

He looked down at her, slightly startled at being pulled out of his thoughts. "What?"

Instead of repeating her question, she leaned one shoulder against the brick building and looked at him curiously. "What's going through that weird mind of yours?"

"I was just . . . trying to piece together the similarities between the waitress and Claire Young," he said with a shrug. "Let's go home."

"That's what I was saying in the first place." She pushed herself off the wall and slid her arm through his. "I asked which 'home' you want to go to."

"Oh," he said absentmindedly.

"Ok, either you're drunk or you're off in la-la land," she said with a tolerant sigh. "So I'll decide: we're going to your place."

"Okay." He didn't move.

Rolling her eyes and accepting the fact that he had no idea what she was talking about, she gave his arm a yank. "Come on. We'll walk."

"It's fifteen blocks, Alex!"

"Oh," she said arching an eyebrow, "now you're paying attention? Come on, we need to work off all that alcohol anyway."

"But . . ."

"Move," she ordered tiredly, giving his arm another pull. "We'll talk it out while we walk."

"I'm not drunk," he said abruptly.

"What, are you operating on a twenty-second delay tonight? Just _walk_, Bobby. As simple as that."

"Sorry." Forcing his mind back to the moment at hand, he obeyed her command and they began to walk down the street. A few seconds later, when she hadn't said anything else, he paused and looked at her. "Sorry."

"You just said that," she pointed out. "And don't worry - I'm not mad. Just tired."

"Sor-"

She gave him a shove into the wall they were walking past and advanced a step. "Would you stop apologizing?" She moved a step closer, amused to find that Bobby the behemoth was retreating and now had his back against the wall. "Hmm, I think I like this."

He blinked down at her. "Like what?"

"This," she said, demonstrating by putting a hand on either side of him in a parody of the way he'd pinned her to walls in the past. "Makes me feel powerful."

He made no move to escape her arms, just looked thoughtful. "You mean you don't usually feel powerful? _You_?"

It took her a second to think of an answer to that. "There are different kinds of power. Some of them I have, some of them you have."

"Different kinds of power?" he echoed, pulling her hands off the wall and starting to walk again, towing her with him. "Give me examples."

"Well . . ." She followed him without thinking about it, her mind focused on his question. "Well, there's power when it comes to our casework. That's yours."

"It is?" he said skeptically.

"Yes," she said shortly, deciding that that would be a whole conversation in itself and tonight was not the time to get started on it. "And then there's power over our . . . emotions. That's mostly mine, I think."

"_All _yours," he corrected.

"Ok, all mine. We're . . . Bobby?" she asked, noticing that he'd pulled her to a stop again.

"Emotions," he said pensively.

"Yeah, emotions. You know, those things that make you do stupid stuff like try to hit Mike Logan?"

"Yeah, I know. You just . . . gave me an idea."

She sighed and started walking again, slipping her hand out of his when he didn't immediately follow. "God save me from your late-night ideas. I was hoping to actually get some _sleep_ tonight," she told him over her shoulder.

He jogged a few steps to catch up with her. "I wasn't going to keep you from sleeping. I was just . . . saying."

"Saying what?" she asked without turning around.

"How much control over a person does another person have if they control the person's emotions?"

She mouthed the question to herself, trying to sort out the different _persons _he'd just referenced. "If you have control over a person's emotions - assuming it's a personal relationship and not a business one or something - then you have pretty solid control of the person as a whole. Is this where you tell me you think I'm a controlling bitch?" she asked warily, only half-joking.

"What? No!" Before she could reply, he stopped short and grabbed her arm, pulling her out of the path of a bike messenger who was bearing down on them in the crosswalk. "Whoa, watch it."

She paused next to him, blinking. "Sorry. Now you've got _me _thinking and forgetting where I am."

"Too much thinking."

"That's what I've been telling you for the past fifteen minutes, genius," she said, unable to resist sticking out her tongue.

He looked at that pink tongue a little too long, then pulled his eyes away. "Don't give me ideas."

She grinned. "Why not?"

He just shook his head and stepped into the crosswalk with her behind him. "Two more blocks."

"You getting tired already, Goren? Maybe I need to get you to the gym more often," she teased.

" 'Tired' is not the word I'd apply to it," he muttered. "Come on."

She followed until they reached his building, figuring that whatever he had in mind, it would probably be more comfortable inside his apartment than against a rough brick wall.

On second thought, that "rough brick wall" idea sounded kind of intriguing . . .

Eyeing the raised staircase that lead to the front door of his building, she pulled him to the side of it before be could put a foot on the bottom step. "C'mere."

He stumbled, unprepared for the sudden lateral movement, then caught himself and allowed her to drag him into the shadows between the side of the stairway and the front of the building. "What . . .?"

She leaned back against the concrete side of the staircase and quickly reached up, taking his face in her hands and pulling him down so she could kiss him - which she did, hard.

A hiss of surprise escaped him as he planted his hands against the wall to keep from falling and crushing her between him and the concrete. When he'd regained his equilibrium, one hand left the wall to touch her cheek, then trail down her neck to her shoulder. "Alex, we -" he attempted, pulling his mouth from hers with great effort and trying to stand up straighter.

Ignoring his weak protest, she put her arms around his neck, an overextension that she usually found uncomfortable when he was standing up straight, and hugged him, pressing her body against his. "Did I ever tell you," she began, looking up at his face meditatively, "that part of the reason I decided to forgive you when you were being a jerk last week was that I remembered how you took care of me after that Christmas party a couple years ago?"

Her looked at her, bewildered. "What?"

"You don't remember?"

"I remember that night, if that's what you mean, but that's as far as I'm following you."

"Oh." She shrugged, feeling slightly self-conscious about it now that she didn't know if he'd noticed the change between them that night. "I was just thinking that, you know . . . I got sick, and you took care of me long enough to get me home. That would be as far as most people would feel obligated to go, and they would have left after that."

"With the shape you were in?" he protested. "No one would have left you alone."

"Yeah, a lot of people would have. My point is that you didn't, and you stayed practically the whole night."

He looked down at her face and wrinkled his brows in confusion. "I'm following your words, but I'm still not getting your point."

"Never mind," she sighed, annoyed with herself for ruining a perfectly good light-hearted night by bringing the topic up. "It's not important anyway, I was just thinking out loud."

He gently pulled her arms from around his neck and brought them to her sides, his own arms continuing around her waist after releasing hers. "You never let me get away with saying that; no way am I letting _you _get away with it," he told her, leaning down again so he could look into her eyes.

"Honestly, it's not anything deep and meaningful," she said, relaxing slightly so that his arms around her waist were supporting most of her weight. "It was just that you didn't even hesitate at the thought of spending a night cleaning up every time I got sick. It made me feel . . . well, you didn't give it a second thought, so I didn't feel guilty, which I normally would have about someone doing that. It felt . . . different."

"What did?"

She leaned closer so she could put her arms around him, in turn. "You."

"I felt different?" he repeated dubiously. "Different than what?"

There was a short pause. "Not now," she said with a firm shake of her head. "It doesn't feel nearly as naughty to have a thoughtful discussion when I have you up against a wall instead of to tease you."

_"What_?"

She grinned at his obvious shock. "Why did you think I stopped you out here?"

"Uh . . ."

She leaned her weight back against the wall again, pulling him with her. "I'm starting to think you might be too pure and innocent to hang out with me," she told him with a smirk.

"But I . . " He couldn't seem to get his feet back under him when it came to this conversation.

"Then again, thinking about that Christmas Party, I'm reminded of the rumors I told you about . . . which would necessarily indicate that you're not nearly as innocent as you pretend."

Now_ that_ he had an answer for, at least sort of: "Oh god, not that again."

"You're absolutely the _only _man I know who would be _embarrassed _by the fact that women gossip about how big he is, you know that? We need to work on your self-confidence, Bobby."

"There's nothing wrong with my self-confidence," he argued, bracing himself against the wall with his hands again. "I just don't see why it needs to be gossiped about at all."

"Ever wonder if I've confirmed any of the rumors, now that I can?"

"No, that's -" He stopped, blinked, looked down at her slightly suspiciously. "Have you?"

She grinned. "Wouldn't you like to know."

"Alex!"

Using his tie to pull him down to her level, she kissed him again. Only when she felt one of his hands go to her hair did she pull back and say indulgently, "Idiot. Of course I haven't, and I'm not going to. I don't feel like having to beat off women with a stick with get to go home with you at night."

Still nose-to-nose with her, he stared into her eyes for a second. "That's ridiculous." When she just gave him a tiny smile and shrugged, he stood up and grabbed her hand. "Let's go inside. It's getting cold out here."

She raised an eyebrow. "Trying to escape already? I thought I just said something about _talking _against the wall not being what I stopped here for . . ."

He gave her a speculative look that she couldn't quite read, dropped her hand, and without further discussion, put his hands under her arms and hoisted her up to his level. Stepping forward and bending one of his knees to pin her body between his and the wall at that height, he freed one hand and traced her jawline with a finger. "Was this what you were aiming for?"

She swallowed, eyes wide. "Uh . . . something like that, yeah."

"Glad to oblige." Enjoying her shock, he slid his fingers from her jaw into her hair, holding her head still as he kissed her deeply.

Her arms crept around his neck, fingers tangling in the hair at the back of his head, and she found herself very glad that he was holding her upright, since she wasn't sure she'd be able to do it herself. "Jesus, Bobby!" she gasped when he allowed her to pull away for a breath. "What brought on that change of he-" Her question ended on a squeak that turned into a moan as he pulled his upper body away from hers, leaving only his knee between her legs to hold her up.

He gave her a knowing smile. "Ready to go inside now?"

She nodded mutely and stared at him as he straightened his leg and set her on the ground. "You . . ." She licked her dry lips and tried to glare at him. "You did that on purpose, just to get me to cooperate! Damn, you can be manipulative when you want to be."

"Can I?" Bobby said mildly as they mounted the steps and entered the building.

"Yeah," she said tightly, crossing her arms as they entered the elevator that had conveniently already been on the ground floor. "And you know . . . I think I'm starting to like it," she finished with a smirk.


	15. What the girlfriends know

The first thing they heard when they entered the squad room the next morning was a shout of, "Yo! Goren, Eames!" from the direction of Logan's and Barek's desks.

Alex and Bobby looked at each other, dropped their coats and files on their desks, and made for the other side of the room. "What's up?" Alex asked, leaning one hip against Logan's desk.

"I got in a little early, so I talked to the father first thing this morning," Barek said, not wasting time on pleasantries. "He gave me a few names and numbers of friends of Claire's." She held out a sheet of notepaper she'd written the information on. "I wasn't sure if you wanted to go directly to the daughter, whether for names or for information, or not at all."

Alex accepted the list from her and scanned it. "Four girlfriends, the boyfriend, and Claire herself. That seems about right, if we're only looking for close friends." She glanced up at Goren. "What do you want to do?"

He looked over her shoulder at the sheet of paper. "Let's just split the friends, two and two. Eames and I will take . . . Jill Barrett," he began, reading the first name on the list, "and Jane Grosse. You guys get . . . Kathryn McCoy and Jessica Wolf."

"God," Barek muttered as she jotted down the names, "I feel like I'm stuck in WASP hell. Don't these people know anyone who's black, or Hispanic, or _something_?"

Alex grinned. "Apparently not. But hey, it's their loss. I dated a black guy in college who had the most _gorgeous_ skin I've ever seen . . ." she began introspectively. "Hmm, wonder whatever happened to him."

Under any other circumstances, Logan decided as he smothered a laugh, he would definitely have paid to see the look Goren's face was currently displaying. Still, the unspoken code of male behavior demanded that he try to distract Alex before she could punch a bigger hole in her partner's ego. Turning to her, he knuckled her shoulder and teased, "He's probably a billionaire somewhere, sitting at his desk, wondering what happened to you."

Barek started to say something, then stopped to catch a piece of her muffin that broke off when she bit into it. "Mmm," she managed a second later, voice muffled by the food she was chewing, "I know what you mean, Eames. I dated this guy who had a huge -"

"Excuse me!" Logan broke in loudly, waving a hand between the two women. "Save those stories for one of your 'girls' nights.' Me and Goren would like to keep our breakfasts down, thank you very much."

Eames and Barek exchanged an amused look. "Jealous," Barek said with a grin.

"Yep." Alex sighed and slipped her notebook back into her pocket. "What do you say, Goren? Want to go hunt down the first WASP on our list?"

"Huh?" Still wondering about this mysterious past boyfriend of hers, it took Bobby a second to switch back to work mode. "Uh, I mean, yeah, let's go."

"We should head out too," Barek said, looking at her partner. "Whenever you're ready." She lounged against the side of her desk, watching Goren and Eames walk toward the elevators, while she waited for Logan to get his stuff together.

"Ready," he said a few seconds later. "So, uh, Carolyn . . . what were you going to say before I cut you off?"

"You mean about the boyfriend with the huge . . ."

"Yeah."

"Do you really want to know?" she asked with a smirk. At his decisive nod, she shrugged. "It was the late 80s. He had a huge flattop haircut. Why?" she added with wide-eyed innocence. "What did you think I was going to say?"

"Um . . ." Logan looked down at his feet for a second, then back up. "Uh, yeah, it's getting late. Let's get moving," he said quickly, making for the elevators without seeing if she was following.

* * *

_Transcript of Interview: Jill Barrett_

_Interviewers: Det. A. Eames, Det. R. Goren_

Eames: Can we get you anything before we start, Jill? Something to drink?

Barrett: No. No, thank you, I'm ok.

Eames: Ok, well, let's get started then. Would you tell us your full name and your connection to Claire and Gabrielle Young?

Barrett: Jillian Elizabeth Barrett. I was Claire's roommate freshman year and we're still friends. I don't really know her mother.

Goren: Roommates, huh? So that was before she decided to move in with Tony Meadows?

Barrett: Yeah. She met him toward the end of the year - thankfully.

Eames: Why "thankfully"? He's that nice a guy?

Barrett: Not quite. I meant that it was lucky for me that she didn't meet him until late in the year - otherwise I probably wouldn't have had a roommate. Definitely not one as good as Claire was.

Goren: What makes a "good" roommate? I, uh, always lived alone while I was in school.

Barrett: Oh. Well . . . I was really shy, and Claire's not, but she somehow of managed to pull me out of my shell without scaring me too much.

Goren: Claire's "not shy"? What does that mean, exactly - is she, uh, you know, a party girl? Lots of boyfriends?

Barrett: No! I mean, no more than any other college girl. She liked to go to parties on the weekend and she always had a date when she wanted one -

Eames: You're speaking about her in the past tense. Do you mean that she's not like that anymore?

Barrett: She's still Claire. I don't mean she's did a one-eighty or something, just that since she started dating Tony, she's been . . . less.

Eames: Less what?

Barrett: Well, you know how it is when you have a new relationship and you want to spend every single second with him, and you'll even blow off your friends so you can?

Eames: Sure.

Barrett: Well, they've been together for, like, two years, and she still does that. Not . . . I don't mean she's, like, forgotten that her friends exist, I just mean that a lot of the time when we ask her to do something with us, she'll be like, "Oh, no, Tony wants me to do X with him tonight, sorry!"

Goren: Do you get the impression that those times are her decision, or Tony's?

Barrett: I . . . a little of both, I guess. Like, I don't think he sits her down and goes, "Ok, you're not allowed to go to the movies with Jill," but I think he kind of hints along those lines and then lets her make the actual decision.

Eames: Have you ever actually seen him do that?

Barrett: No, which is why I'm saying that I'm not really sure. It's just . . . an impression I get.

Goren: Well, we know the value of "impressions" in our line of work, so we'll keep that in mind. Has Claire ever mentioned what her mother thought of Tony?

Barrett: Her parents don't like him. Pretty much none of us really like him - her friends and family, I mean.

Eames: And why is that?

Barrett: He's just a jerk.

Goren: He seemed very, uh, well-mannered when we spoke to him and Claire.

Barrett: I know. He's good at that, at making people like him.

Goren: . . . but it's a talent of his, not a real aspect of his personality?

Barrett: Exactly. He only acts like that around Claire when they're with people he wants to impress. And a little bit when they're with people like me, friends. He can be very charming.

Eames: Does he mistreat Claire? Either physically or mentally.

Barrett: He's never hit her. She wouldn't stand around for that, I _know _that. He's just got too big an ego for his own good, and Claire usually lets him walk all over her, which doesn't help. But that doesn't answer your question, sorry. I don't know if I can really answer it, except to say that if any of us - me, Kathryn, Jessie, and Jane, I mean - ever saw her with mysterious bruises or something, you can bet your ass we'd _make _her dump him.

Goren: What about her parents?

Barrett: Her dad would go ballistic. Her mom . . . I don't think her mom would ever let her out of the house again unless she was sure Tony was far, far away.

_5 seconds silence_

Goren: That's understandable. Listen, Jill, thank you for talking with us today. My partner will give you our card - if you think of anything else we should know, don't think twice about giving us a call.

Barrett: Ok. So does this mean . . . are you . . . do you think Tony killed Mrs. Young?

Eames: We don't think much of anything at this point, Jill. We're basically trying to flesh out the way the whole family lived so we can get a handle on where to look closer.

Barrett: As in, look closer at Tony. Well, good, because she deserves better than him. And you can tell him I said that.

Eames: Thanks. The officer will show you downstairs.

* * *

Alex sighed and rolled her neck to try to loosen it up. She hated having to sit at her desk, typing, when the rest of the room hummed and buzzed with action around her. "Bobby . . ."

"No," he replied without looking up from the page he was reading. "I did the last batch, it's your turn."

"Oh, come on. Please?"

He shook his head. "You want me to do all the paperwork again, you win another bet. 'Til then, we're switching off like always."

"You're evil." She sighed and saved the file she'd just typed the interview in. "I suppose I have to walk all the way over to the printer and get the copies myself, too?"

"Yep."

She stuck her tongue out at him, knowing he wasn't paying enough attention to notice, then stood up with a groan. "What are you reading, anyway?"

He glanced up at her, then at the short stack of files on his desk. "Homicides between significant others where there was no prior record of domestic abuse."

She used one finger to pull down the top of the folder he was holding so that she could read the first few lines. "So you are. Fine, then - you keep profiling; I'm going to go hand out copies of this morning's interview."

"Mmhm."

Muttering darkly, she stalked off toward the printer in the back of the room. The three copies she'd printed were already lying on the tray and she grabbed them with one hand as she passed, then changed her trajectory and headed for Deakins's office. "Interview," she said, poking her head in the door. "Where do you want it?"

"Depends." The captain took his hand off the phone he'd been about to pick up. "Is it anything good?"

"Nothing momentous, but I have a good feeling about it."

"Front and center, then," he said, patting his desk. "Who is it?"

"One of Claire Young's friends. The boyfriend's starting to look good for it." She set one of the copies down in front of him. "We've got another girl scheduled for after lunch, and Logan and Barek are supposed to be talking to two more."

Deakins nodded his approval. "Good. If you run into Barek, tell her I want copies of theirs too."

"Just Barek?" Alex asked with raised eyebrows. "What, are the female detectives getting reassigned to the typing pool and you just haven't told us yet?"

"Whoa, no offense intended. Keep the sexual discrimination complaint form in the filing cabinet where it belongs. I just meant that Barek's more likely to remember if you tell her."

She gave him a look. "Sure you did. Anyway, Goren and I will check in with you again later." She turned and walked back into the squad room, feeling slightly guilty for jumping on him when she knew he'd had a completely different issue in mind when he avoided Logan's name.

"Eames!"

She looked up at the sound of her name and found Carolyn Barek standing up at her desk and motioning for her to come closer. "Speak of the devil," she muttered as she made her way to the other woman. "What's up?"

"Kathryn McCoy's Irish, first off," Barek said with a grin. "She read us the riot act for daring to think Claire might have something to do with the murder, then told us that the boyfriend's on the moral level of a slime mold."

Alex blinked. "Impressively phrased. Was that hers or yours?"

"Mine. She referenced something less palatable than slime mold."

"Not gonna ask."

Barek laughed. "Good idea. Anyway, Logan's finishing typing it all up now -" She paused as they both leaned slightly around the column between Barek's desk and Logan's and checked that he was still there.

"What?" he said, looking up from the keyboard in startled confusion. "Whatever it is, I didn't do it."

Both women chuckled and moved back to their original positions in front of Barek's desk. "- and we'll get a copy to you guys as soon as he's done," she went on as though there had been no interruption.

"Can you do me a favor?" Alex asked, leaning forward and lowering her voice as though she were about to impart a deep, dark secret.

"Probably," Barek replied slightly suspiciously. "What do you want?"

"Whichever of you brings a copy to Deakins, make a big deal about how it was Logan who did the typing."

That wasn't on the list of possible requests that Barek had expected. "Should I ask why?"

Alex grinned. "I was ribbing him about how he only talked about you and me doing the typing. Made him nervous."

"Damn, you can be passive-aggressive when you want to be, you know that?"

"Of course." She glanced over her shoulder, noticing that Bobby still had his head buried in a file folder, then looked back at the other woman. "Even feminine wiles and a strong right hook can't work _all_ the time."

"Ha!" Caught by surprise by Alex's deadpan response, Barek let out a loud laugh, then immediately slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle it. "Sorry. But you have a point."

"Hey," Logan broke in, leaning around the column the same way the women had a minute ago, "what's so funny?"

Alex shook her head and waved a hand at him. "You wouldn't be interested. Go back to your typing - speaking of which, how much longer before I can get a copy of that?"

"If you're willing to haul your ass over to the printer, you can have a copy now, as long as you bring the other two back here."

"Gee, thanks. Just what I always wanted," she replied dryly. "What do you guys have for this afternoon?"

"Jessica Wolf, between her classes at Columbia," Barek said with a sigh.

"Don't sound so enthused," Alex teased. "Bobby and I are talking to Jane Grosse here at two. Want to meet up at the end of the day to check in and report back to the bossman?"

"Sounds good," Barek said with an agreeable nod.

"Ditto," Logan said. "Now go get my print-outs - ow!" he yelped in mock pain when Barek reached across both their desks and swatted his arm. He shot her a dirty look, then sighed. "Fine, fine. Alex, would you please go get the interview print-outs?"

"Why, of course!" she responded in a cheerfully formal voice. "Barek, I don't see any bruises on him - you've got to tell me what your other strategy is."

Barek grinned at the worried look that appeared on her partner's face. "We'll have a girls night one of these days," she told Alex.

Logan snorted. "And you'll both come in the next day ten pounds heavier from the ice cream and with hangovers from hell."

"Sounds about right," Alex said with a nod. "You're just jealous you won't be invited."

Logan looked put-out for a second before his face took on a thoughtful expression. "I wonder," he said slowly, tapping a finger against his chin, "what Goren would think of helping me stage a panty raid."

All three of the burst out laughing.


	16. Traffic magic

A/N: This chapter's way short, but I just liked the ending so much that I couldn't make myself add onto it. I do know what happens in the next chap, though, so hopefully soon.

* * *

The afternoon got a little more hectic than anyone had planned for. Five o'clock found Logan and Barek at their desks, eyeing the closed door of Deakins's office, while Goren and Eames were stuck in rush-hour traffic, both silently cursing Jane Grosse for rescheduling their interview on such short notice. In too much of a hurry to stop and consider their transportation choices when they left, they'd just grabbed a car and gone when Jane called just after two to reschedule for later in the afternoon, at her apartment.

"I can't believe this," Alex groaned. "The light's green, jackass!" she yelled a second later at the driver in front of them. "That means _go_!" She knew the only person who could hear her rants in the closed car was her partner, but it still made her feel better to yell.

Bobby, knowing her temper too well to take his chances, swallowed the laugh that almost escaped him. "We'll get there. Why don't you call in, tell them we're going to be late for the update meeting?" He nudged her phone toward her on the dashboard.

Alex snorted and pushed it back. "I'm the one trying to maneuver us through this disaster they call a street. You want us called in, _you _do the calling."

"Ok, fine." He put hers back where it had been and pulled his off his belt. "They probably already started without us."

"Their loss," she said shortly, not taking her eyes off the road, where traffic had begun to move for a second before a taxi stopped, blocking two lanes, to pick up a woman in a fur coat. "That mink's not going to look nearly as nice after I get done with you, sweetheart!" she growled at the culprit. "How'd you like it shoved up your _ass_?"

Next to her, Goren choked on his laugh this time, with the result that what Mike Logan heard when he answered the phone in the MCS squad room was a shouted, "ass!" followed by the sound of someone being strangled. Putting his hand over the receiver, he turned to Barek and told her calmly, "Either we've got a really creative crank caller, or Goren and Eames are checking in. I'm putting it on speaker."

". . . want to see _you _do the goddamn driving, if you're going to bitch about how I do it!" Alex was shouting when Logan put the receiver back in its cradle and leaned back to listen.

"Would you please just stop impugning the other drivers' ancestors long enough for me to make this one call?" Bobby's voice shot back.

"Go, Goren!" Barek whispered, shaking a triumphant fist at the near-empty squad room.

Logan just rolled his eyes and moved closer to the phone. "Too late, Goren. We heard her."

Bobby sighed. "Sorry. She hates traffic jams."

"Is there anyone who _likes _them?" Barek asked sarcastically as she rolled her chair closer to Logan and his phone.

He didn't respond to that remark, and they heard muffled voices for a few seconds before Goren's voice returned to the phone full-force. "We're calling to tell you that unless some, uh, traffic magic happens very soon, we're going to be seriously late for the update we promised you guys and Deakins."

"Traffic magic?" Eames's voice said in the background. "Is that like dance magic?"

"It's fine, Goren," Barek spoke up before the two caged detectives could get into a discussion of what _traffic magic _meant and whether it involved muppets. "Deakins got mysteriously busy after I delivered the interview transcripts and explained how Logan typed them, so he's not in the equation for tonight."

"Oh, ok. So wh- wait, why would you delivering transcripts make him mysteriously busy?" A short pause. "Never mind. Eames says she'll tell me later. What I was going to say was, how are we going to work this now?"

Logan and Barek both looked up from the phone, waiting for the other to suggest something first, which resulted in a staring contest. "Oh, _fine_!" Barek grumbled after ten seconds of silence. "I owe you dinner, Eames. Why don't we all have another brainstorming session over dinner, this time at my apartment?"

"Not spaghetti _again_," Logan groaned loudly.

"Would you prefer, say, vegetarian lasagna?" Barek asked sweetly.

"Uh . . . I changed my mind, spaghetti's fine."

"Exactly. But that's not what I was thinking, anyway. Goren, how much pizza will you two consume if we order pizza?"

Muffled voices mixed with the sound of a hundred horns blowing in the street came through the phone for a second. "Depends on how hungry we end up being. Probably a pie and a half would be more than enough."

"You're going to eat a whole damn pie, alone?" Logan asked skeptically.

"No, Alex is," Bobby replied as if wondering what the big deal was.

Complete silence from Logan and Barek as they both stared at the phone, then each other. "Are you kidding me?" Barek finally said.

"No. Look, can we just get this set up? She's getting antsy and I need both hands to . . ."

"Uh, right. Sure. Can you guys make it to my place between six and seven? Oh, speaking of which, do you need directions?"

"We have a roster in the glove compartment. Is your address current?"

"Yep."

The sound of paper crinkling as Goren consulted the document in question, placing her address on his mental map of Manhattan. "Yeah, we can get there. Probably closer to seven, though, so you might want to hold off on ordering the pizza."

"Tell them to grab the file folder off my desk!" Alex shouted in the background.

"You guys hear that?" asked Bobby.

"Yeah," Logan replied. "Barek just went to get . . . yeah, she got it. No problem."

"Ok, good. That everything?" Even without being able to see him, Logan and Barek could tell that Goren was getting impatient.

"Should be, yeah. We'll call you back if we think of anything else," Barek said.

"Great. See you then," he said quickly. Then, fading out as he pulled the phone away from his mouth to close it, they heard it: "Damnit Alex, keep your hands to yourself!"

The few people left in the MCS squad room all looked up and stared a second later at the spectacle in front of them. Detectives Logan and Barek, both sitting at Logan's desk, were howling with uncontrollable laughter. As they watched, Barek tumbled out of her chair on one particularly energetic giggle.

"Damn, why I don't I get a hot female partner to laugh like that with?" Hutchinson muttered jokingly to the man standing next to him. "Noooo, I get stuck with the old fart who whaps me on the head with his folders when he thinks I've done something wrong."

The other man just looked at him for a second, that whacked him on the head with the file folder he'd been holding.


	17. Pizza party

A/N: Sigh. I'm kind of thin on plot, and it doesn't help that all I can seem to type lately is fluff and/or humor. We'll see how this chapter goes over, I guess...

* * *

Logan was already comfortably ensconced on Barek's couch, her cat purring loudly on his lap, when Goren and Eames arrived looking somewhat worse for the wear. "Damn," Logan whistled as he took in his two very rumpled, very unhappy-looking coworkers. "What happened to you guys?"

Goren and Eames looked at each other as if each was daring the other to talk first. "Nothing," Alex finally snapped. "Please tell me you've got the pizza on the way, or I might be forced to start gnawing on Bobby's arm."

Barek, who had been observing from the sidelines with her ferret perched on one shoulder, quickly stepped forward to intervene before Alex could start cannibalizing her partner. "Here," she said, lifting the animal and handing him to Alex. "Hug something furry, instead."

Alex accepted it reflexively, then looked down at the lithe animal in her hands. "He doesn't look very huggable. Looks more like I'd break him if I hugged him."

"That's ok - give him a few seconds and he'll hug you, instead," Barek replied. As she spoke, the ferret reared up and sniffed at Alex's hair, then hooked his claws into her shirt and started climbing. "See? Told you so. Alex, meet Vidocq."

She couldn't keep the scowl on her face when there was warm, furry body tickling her neck with its whiskers. Within seconds, Alex was giggling and halfheartedly trying to push the offending nose away as Vidocq curled around her neck.

Bobby, who had been concentrating on removing first Alex's gun, then his own, from their belts, looked up at Barek. "Did you say 'Vidocq?"

"She did," Logan answered for her. "And you haven't even met Locard yet." Turning on the couch to face them, he held up the Siamese, who tolerated the movement with surprising equanimity and just looked back at the spectators with slightly crossed eyes, meowing loudly.

"Vidoq and Locard?" Alex repeated, letting Vidocq sniff her hand. "Well, I suppose it's more appropriate than 'Kitty' and 'Fluffy'."

Barek shrugged. "I'm a cop, what was I supposed to name them?"

"At least there's nothing running around named 'Bertillon,'" Logan said with a grin as he replaced the cat on his lap. "At least, I don't think there is."

"That's what I call the mouse I can't seem to get rid of that Locard likes to chase," Barek quipped.

"Ok, I admit, I'm feeling less homicidal now," Alex said, giggling, "but I'm still starving. Where's dinner?"

"Keep your pants on," Logan told her. "It's on the way."

"Uh, yeah," Barek said with a grin. "All pants should stay on, please. So, is it true that you're going to eat a whole pizza by yourself, or was Goren kidding?"

Alex punched her partner in the arm. "Great, go and tell everyone so I look like a pig. Some damn partner you are."

"Who said anything about pigs?" Logan pushed Locard off his lap and stood up, walking over to where the others stood. "If you can seriously eat an entire pizza, Eames, I'm gonna want to shake your hand, not make fun of you."

Goren looked thoughtful. "Would you and Barek care to make a friendly wager about the matter?" he asked Logan.

"Count me out," Barek said immediately. "I'm a believer."

Logan snorted. "Weakling. I'll take you up on that, Goren. There's physically no way your scrap of a partner could get a whole pizza into her. What are the terms?"

Bobby blinked. "Uh . . . I hadn't got that far in the planning."

"That'll teach you to speak before you think," Alex teased. "How 'bout the winner gets to interview Tony Meadows, and the loser gets to do the cleanup work?" She looked at Barek and added, "Right? Male ego, they'll want to face the guy?"

"Sounds about right to me," Barek agreed. "What do you say, guys?"

Bobby hid his smirk. He and Alex both knew that it wasn't a fair bet; he'd seen her polish off a pizza more times than he could count, usually during long nights of grunt work . . . but Logan didn't need to know that. "Sounds good to me."

"Me too," Logan said with a nod. "So, Carolyn . . . when _is _the pizza supposed to get here, anyway?"

As if on cue, there was a knock on the apartment door. "Dominoes!" a youthful-sounding voice called.

Barek gave her partner a push toward the door. "Answer the door, Logan. Did I mention that you're paying?"

"But . . ."

"Hope you brought your wallet," she teased.

"Oh, for god's sake," Alex grumbled when Logan just continued to look blank, "I'll answer the damn door." And she did exactly that, marching to the door and yanking it open, startling the teenager outside who was balancing three pizzas in one hand. The boy just gaped at her, and it took her a second to realize he was trying to figure out what the furry thing clinging to her was. Rolling her eyes, she removed Vidocq from her shoulder and held him out to Barek. "Carolyn?"

"Got him." Barek took the ferret and smiled at the pizza boy. "You can come on in and put them down on the table."

"Uh, sure." He entered the apartment warily, then stopped short at the sight of Logan leaning against the wall. He immediately began to back up, and all three of the others looked at Logan, wondering what he'd done.

"Oh, for god's sake, Mike!" Barek groaned. "Did you miss the lesson about leaving your sidearm at the door when you go visiting? It's ok, kid," she told the pizza boy. "He's a cop. A dumb one, but still a cop."

Logan glanced absently down at his hip and thumbed open the holster on his belt. "Oh, sorry. Kitchen ok for now?"

"Kitchen's fine, dimwit. You got any money for the pizza?"

Pretending he hadn't heard her question, Logan made a swift disappearance into the kitchen to deposit his gun in a room where it wouldn't be visible to innocent bystanders.

"I know where you keep your wallet!" Barek called after him, reaching into the pocket of the coat he'd left draped over a chair. "How much?" she added, looking at the teenager, who seemed to want nothing more than to escape this room full of nutcases.

"Uh . . . twenty-one . . . but I should, uh . . . I'm supposed to wait outside the door . . ."

"Calm down. My partner's an idiot, but he's not violent toward people who deliver his dinner." She counted out the twenty-one dollars plus a sizeable tip, taking half from her pocket and half from Logan's wallet. "Thanks."

The delivery boy beat a hasty retreat, and ten seconds later, three detectives were gathered around the living room table, staring down at the pizzas. "Which one's yours, Eames?" Barek said with a grin. "Better claim it before Logan comes back to fight you for it."

"Which one's plain cheese?"

Bobby crouched down to read the writing on the sides of the boxes. "Here," he said after a second, pulling out the middle box. "Enjoy."

She accepted the box from him with a grin. "I plan to."

When Logan returned to the room a minute later, he found Eames sprawled on the floor, leaning against Goren's legs where they dangled off the couch, while Barek had taken over the length of her loveseat. Each detective had claimed a pizza, and all three seemed to be enjoying his confusion. "Hey, come on guys. I paid for it, don't I get any?" He gave Barek's legs a push. "Shove over, Carolyn."

"Not a chance," she mumbled around a mouthful of cheese and pepperoni. "Go sit by Goren."

The two men exchanged wary looks, and Alex snorted. "Come on, Logan, don't you want to supervise your bet? Make sure I don't cheat and feed some of my pizza to the cat?"

He glanced at the cat, who was stretched along the back of the couch, one paw almost touching Goren's head. "Somehow, I think that threat would sound a lot more threatening if we were talking about a dog, or even a fat cat, instead of that thing," he said, pointing.

"Just sit your ass down, Mike," Eames said, throwing a piece of crust at him. "Some of us would like to get to work sometime tonight."

"Oh, fine." He dropped onto the opposite end of the couch from Goren, then glanced from the other man to Barek. "So, who's sharing their pizza with me?"

"He is," Barek said immediately, pointing to Goren. "Stay away from my pepperoni."

Goren shrugged good-naturedly and slid the box toward Logan. "Help yourself."

Logan did, then leaned forward slightly to check Eames's progress. "You done yet, slugger?"

Not even turning around, she took one hand away from the slice she was eating and shook her fist at him over her shoulder. "I'll show you 'slugger' . . ." Her rant was interrupted by the paper airplane that hit her in the side of the head. "Hey!"

A second later, Goren received a similar hit. "What . . .?" he began, snagging the paper before it could fall off the couch and unfolding it. "Oh, thanks. Interview transcripts," he informed his partner, who had casually tossed aside her plane in favor of her pizza.

"Thanks," Alex echoed, looking at Barek. "Sorry we can't reciprocate, but since _some _of us got stuck in traffic and couldn't get back to the office . . ."

"Read first, bitch later," Logan ordered, leaning forward to ruffle her hair. The sound of a throat clearing next to him put a stop to that, and he leaned back and gave Goren his best attempt at an innocent look. "What? Just checking her pizza progress."

"Don't touch the hair," Alex muttered, elbowing him in the knee. "Bobby, did they get anything good?"

Goren looked down at the paper in his hand and skimmed the contents of the interview. "Jessica Wolf, twenty-two. Uh, what's with the bracketed parts?" he asked, looking up at Barek and Logan.

Barek snorted. "Logan typed it. Those are his, uh, 'impressions' of her."

" 'Sexily dressed'?" Alex read, unfolding her own copy. "Before I even get into how creepy that is, is 'sexily' even a word?"

"Hey," Logan said defensively, "she was wearing a shirt cut down to her navel and she insisted on sitting next to me. What was I supposed to write?"

"Yeah, 'cause everyone knows you're god's gift to women," Barek said sarcastically. "I'm sure she was just intimidated by my superior beauty."

"Mmph," Goren interrupted, holding out a hand to stop Logan from responding to Barek's gibe while he swallowed the pizza he was chewing. "I know this one - the right answer is to agree with her."

Eames tipped her head back to grin up at him. "Ah, that's my partner . . . I knew I'd get you trained one of these days."

"Eat your pizza, girl," Logan ordered sourly. "And fine, Carolyn, I'm sure you're right. Can we get back to the actual contents of the interview, please?"

"Sure." Alex stuffed the remains of her sixth slice into her mouth and looked down at the transcript she held. "Ooh, breakups!" she exclaimed a second later, but through the mouthful of dough, the words came out nearly unintelligible.

"What?" Logan and Barek chorused.

"She said, 'ooh, breakups'," Goren translated. "And you're right, Eames." Looking back up at the other detectives, he explained, "Jane Grosse said that they had an on-again, off-again relationship and that it seemed to usually be Claire who did the breaking up. Put that together with what you guys've got here . . ."

". . . and we get a pattern of her trying to escape the relationship and him repeatedly pulling her back in," Alex finished for him after swallowing her mouthful. "She would break up with him - for now I think we can assume that it's because he was so controlling - and try to go her own way, and he would keep calling her and insisting that he loved her until she took him back."

"Sounds like she met Barek's ex," Logan said with a smirk.

"Excuse me!" Barek exclaimed, shaking her pizza threateningly at him. "He wasn't controlling, he just needed constant reassurance. Not everyone's got as, uh, 'healthy' an ego as you do, Logan."

"Whatever." He reached for a second slice out of the box he and Goren were sharing, then looked around at the progress the two women had made on their own pizzas. "Holy crap, Barek."

Barek glanced up from pulling her fifth slice out and gave him a politely curious look. "What?"

"You're almost as far in as Alex is!"

Alex smirked and reached out a hand to give Barek a playful high-five. "I do recall you asking us once how we could eat ice cream and drink wine for a whole night and not get fat."

"And now you've got your answer," Barek continued for her. "Practice, and lots of it."

"And partners we have to keep on a tight leash," Alex added.

"Right, that too."

Logan slumped back against the couch. "I am so screwed."

"Hey, we tried to warn you," Alex informed him. "But you just couldn't believe that I was up to the challenge."

"Looks like you're stuck with the paperwork for the foreseeable future," Barek told him. "And I'm _so _not helping you with it."

* * *

Endnote: Vidocq, Locard, and Bertillon were famous Frenchmen who advanced the fields of policework and forensic science. Vidocq is the father of cold-case solving, Locard was the originator of (dum dum DUM) Locard's Principle, which states that contact between two objects will result in trace evidence transfer between them, and Bertillon was the creator of a body measurement system (basically, because no one would have the same X number of measurements, then it that profile was unique to that person, and could be used to identify them in the future) that was the predecessor to fingerprinting 


	18. Brainstorming

A/N: Ah, much better...finally found some plot hidden under a rock in my brain.

* * *

"There," Alex said ten minutes later, making a show of licking the grease from her eighth slice off her fingers. "Now that I've won the bet, can we get to work?"

Bobby nodded his agreement. "If we're going to stick with the boyfriend theory, we need a better motive than just 'her mother didn't like him'. There's plenty of mothers who don't like their daughters' controlling boyfriends, but they don't all end up dead."

"Not just dead, but beaten and shot," Logan added, "in an expression of rage."

"He really didn't strike me as the type who couldn't control his rage," Alex said thoughtfully. "Seemed more like the slimy, politician type. Problem is, the last time I checked, it wasn't good politics to kill your girlfriend's parents, even if they don't like you."

"Which means that for this murder to have happened according to our current theory," Barek said slowly, "two important factors had to converge: first, the mother had to present enough of a threat that it was better to take his chances and kill her than to let her live, and second, he had to be sure he had enough of a hold over Claire that he could keep her with him even after the murder."

"You know, with just about every girl I dated in college," Logan told them, closing his eyes as if he were picturing the progression of girlfriends, "their mothers hated me. Told the girls that. Pressured them to break up with me. But the thing is, not only did that not make me feel threatened enough to consider violence, but it almost never worked out the way the mother wanted. If anything, having disapproving parents tended to make the girl that much more into our relationship."

"You heartbreaker, you," Barek teased. "But what we're basically establishing here is that something had to go _really _wrong to convince this guy he had to kill Gabrielle Young, right?"

"It could have something to do with how good the relationship between Gabrielle and Claire was," Alex pointed out. "Everyone agrees that they were very close. Best friends."

Logan stretched his legs out, accidentally kicking Eames's elbow. "Yeah," he said after muttering anapology to her, "but everyone also seems to agree that Claire is perfectly willing to have her boyfriend treat her like a doormat. Obviously the mother hadn't managed to convince her that he wasn't worth it."

"Well, let's forget the specifics for the moment," Barek suggested, slipping off her shoes and bringing her feet up so she could sit cross-legged on the loveseat. "Let's come at it from the other direction. What things can a mother do in a situation like this that would be a serious threat to the boyfriend or his control over the girl?"

"She could threaten to cut off the girl's financial support," Alex volunteered immediately. "There's no way she's paying for college and that apartment by herself, and not only would that threaten his comfort, but it might actually get the girl to do what her mother wanted." Copying Barek's action, she toed off her own shoes, stretching her legs out in front of her and wiggling her toes. "I sure as hell wouldn't want to give up a swanky apartment like that just so I could keep a boyfriend who's a jerk."

"We don't have any evidence that she thinks he's a jerk, though," Goren argued. "Out of everyone we've talked to, it seems like Claire's the only one who _doesn't_ believe he is . . . which might indicate a willingness to wear blinders in this relationship. And if that's the case," he went on, "then she's clinging to those blinders with incredible tenacity. It'll be almost impossible to shake her out of it."

"Should we see if we can convince her?" Logan mumbled, half to himself. "If we can crack her, she'll probably give us everything we need to send him up the river."

Eames shook her head. "I don't think so - at least, not now. If her mother, who she seemed to trust implicitly, couldn't convince her, a bunch of cops who don't know her or Tony aren't going to be able to do it either."

"So then, why'd you say 'at least not now'?" Logan asked, looking at her curiously. "Either we can or we can't."

"We don't know enough about her," Goren cut in before Alex could reply. "There's a chance we could do it, if we hit her in the right weak spot . . . but to do that, we need to identify her weak spots."

"Right," she said with a nod. "What he . . ." Her voice trailed off on a gasp as something sharp dug into her leg. She looked down and found Vidocq, who had apparently gotten bored of exploring the rest of the room. "What he said," she repeated, completing the sentence as she lifted the ferret onto her lap and stroked his head with one finger.

"If we could do something like presenting her with some sort of hard evidence that demonstrates that he's not the perfect boyfriend he's got her convinced he is," Barek mused, "something that's difficult to ignore . . . it might be possible."

"Well," Alex said with a sigh, "we already ran his record. Some speeding tickets, but nothing worse."

Logan, who had been studying the carpet, jerked his head up as if he'd just had a flash of insight. "You ran his record the quick way, right? Searched for convictions, fines paid, acquittals?"

"Yeah," Bobby said warily. "Why?"

"Well, did you look for complaints that had been rescinded, charges that had been dropped, that kind of stuff? If he's as much of a charmer as he sounds like he is, he wouldn't have any trouble convincing girls to not press charges, no matter what he did to them."

Eames raised her eyebrows. "He has a point, Bobby. We didn't do that."

"Would've gotten around to it," he muttered defensively.

Ignoring that, Alex looked at the other two detectives. "So we know to check his record more closely. Now let's do this again - if the motive's not financial, what else could it be?"

"Us," Barek said. Smiling a little at the weird looks that statement earned her, she clarified, "Us, as in, the police. What if he _was _hitting her, and just being clever about it? No one's checked her, and we've only got the word of her friends - who would want to protect her reputation - to say it's not happening."

"So you're saying maybe he was slapping her around and her mother got wind of it, threatened to call the cops?" Logan translated. "Hmm, it's a definite possibility. Are we sure that no complaint had been filed already?"

"No complaints against Tony Meadows in the last six months," Alex said, trying to picture the print-out that held the information, which was currently sitting on her couch at home. "And none filed by Gabrielle or Norman Young in the same period."

"Ok," Barek said, "so if Mom threatened to call the police, he might see it as simple self-preservation to knock her off, with the added bonus of helping to keep Claire under his thumb. But how did she know? If there are marks on Claire, they've got to be on her torso or legs - areas that her mom's not likely to see in the dead of winter like it is."

"Well, it could be that she noticed something just 'not right,'" Logan suggested, "but then again, I think Gabrielle Young would be smart enough to wait until she had more proof than that."

The quartet were quiet for a while, each sorting through their case history and outside knowledge to identify a likely way Gabrielle could have found out.

"I wonder . . ." Alex murmured, looking speculative, "I wonder if they'd gone clothes shopping recently."

Silence greeted that thought for a few seconds until Barek nodded slightly and said, "That's a good idea, Eames. One of the few situations where she might have seen her partially undressed."

Logan, whose eyebrows had been climbing slowly since Eames made her suggestion, now lowered them in a look of confusion. "Women walk around half-naked when they're buying clothes? Man, have I been shopping in the wrong stores!"

No one laughed, and both women just gave him bored looks. "That was pathetic, Mike," Alex sighed. "We practically handed the joke to you on a platter, and you still managed to kill it."

Barek snickered. "I don't think we'll be seeing him on Comedy Central any time soon. What we were talkingabout, dimwit," she went on, stretching her leg off the loveseat to kick his thigh, "was trying on clothes. Women do that in packs."

"And they . . . walk around the dressing rooms half-dressed?" Goren said cautiously, not completely following their explanation but not wanting to get himself laughed at like Logan had.

Barek and Eames looked at each other, tacitly considering how to answer his question. "Well, sometimes," Barek finally said. "Like if you're trying on a pair of pants and you want to get a clear look at how the waist fits."

"Right. And if it's crowded, sometimes women who came together will share a dressing room - and that entails undressing in front of each other," Alex added.

The two men just stared at them for a second. "Why didn't I already know that?" Bobby muttered peevishly, annoyed with himself for only now realizing there was a gaping hole in his knowledge when it came to women.

"Uh, Bobby," Alex replied, leaning her head back and smirking at him, "it might have something to do with the fact that you're not female and you haven't - I assume - spent much time in women's dressing rooms. It's forgivable."

"I think I'd be more concerned if you'd already known," Barek agreed.

Logan, who had remained quiet while the women spoke to Goren, took advantage of a lull in the conversation now to grin and look from Barek to Eames. "Either of you going to be needing new clothes any time soon?"

Barek rolled her eyes with a groan. "You need some new material for your jokes, Mike. And for the record, you are _so _never coming clothes shopping with me . . . unless it's clothing armageddon or something, and maybe not even then."

Undaunted, he moved his eyes to the woman sitting by his feet. "How 'bout you, Eames? Need some new pants?"

"If she needs new pants, she's going with _me _to get them," Bobby said sharply before she could even open her mouth to reply.

"He's probably right," Alex admitted to Logan. Then, looking back at Bobby, she gave him a quelling look and added, "But that really did _not _need to be said out loud, Goren." His smile faded then, and she felt a little guilty for teasing him. "Besides," she went on, trying to lighten the atmosphere, "there's no way I can afford the kind of clothes you pick out. An Armani girl, I'm not."

"That's Armani?" Barek asked with raised eyebrows, pointing to the suit Goren was wearing.

"Some of it," he admitted self-consciously. Then, before anyone could comment further, added briskly, "But we need to get back on topic. We need a game plan for tomorrow."

"I want to interview Claire," Alex said quickly. "And I want her before we even start thinking about interviewing Tony."

"Her father can probably give us more background information about the relationship," Logan added. "You guys didn't really get into that when you talked to him last time."

"Ex-girlfriends would be great sources of information on him," Barek said. "We could call Claire's friends again and see if any of them know of who he dated before Claire."

Alex nodded, agreeing. "Logan, you and Barek want to talk to Norman Young, and Goren and I will do Claire? Then we can meet up get started on the phone calls together."

"Sounds good to me," Logan said.

Barek nodded. "Me too."

"Great." She moved Vidocq from her lap to Logan's, enjoying the near-squeak he made as the appearance of the animal caught him by surprise. "I think we need to get going, Bobby."

"We do?" he asked blankly, having missed whatever cue it was that had made her decide that. "I mean, uh, yeah, probably."

"Yes, we do," she said simply. "Pizza was a good idea, Barek. Thanks for having us over."

"And you got a paperwork slave out of the deal, too," Barek said with a grin as she stood up and followed them toward the door.

While Barek was unlocking the door, Alex glanced over her shoulder at Logan, whose expression was teetering on the edge of being a pout. "Right, can't forget our new slave!" she said with overdone cheer.

"Shut up," Logan said sulkily. "How was _I _supposed to know you had a hollow leg?"

"You haven't learned one of the big lessons about dealing with Eames," Goren informed him smugly.

"Oh? And what's that?"

"Never, ever underestimate her." He flipped a hand over his shoulder at Logan in something that resembled a wave, then followed Alex into the hallway. "Thanks, Barek."

"No problem. This was fun," she said, waving off the thanks. "Now, you kids have fun tonight, and don't do anything I wouldn't do."

Alex snorted. "Sure we won't. Night."

"Night. See you guys tomorrow!" Barek closed the door behind them, then turned back to face Logan, who now had a ferret in his lap and a cat hanging over his head. "I think my pets just found a new favorite scratching post," she told him with a grin. "Wanna hang around for a while, help me clean up?"

He sighed theatrically. "Great, I'm being put to work already, and my slaving hasn't even started." Still, he pushed Vidocq off his lap, ducked his head out from under Locard's paw, and stood up, giving his partner a smile. "What do you want done?"


	19. The reluctant Miss Young

A/N: Well, I'm back from vacation...got a lot done on Sacrifice, some done on Kamikaze, and nothing done on Reunion. So you can expect a Kamikaze update and another Sacrifice update in the next few days, but as for Reunion...no clue. Don't kill me!

* * *

"I _know _the department pays you enough that you could get a dishwasher, Carolyn," Logan sighed a few minutes later as he shook a clump of suds off his hand into the sink. "I suggest you look into it."

With a smirk, she snapped the dish towel she was holding at his butt. "Why spend the money for a dishwasher when I have a perfectly good partner?"

"I'm supposed to be Eames's slave, not yours," he grumbled, grabbing the towel and trying to pull it out of her hand. "You can wash your own damn dishes," he added, although he didn't try to move away from the sink.

"Hey," she said airily, waving toward the front door, "you're welcome to go any time you want."

Logan scowled. "I didn't say I wanted to leave."

"You're perverse," she informed him, moving her attention back to the dish she was drying. "Anyone ever tell you that?"

"Not since the last time I tried to persuade a girlfriend to -"

"Mike!"

He grinned. "Don't ask if you don't want to know."

"Jerk. Besides, I'm not the one who couldn't bear to hear about the boyfriends Eames and I had in college, so I'd watch my insults if I were you."

He blinked. "That was for Goren's benefit. He looked like he was about to cut and run."

"Uh-huh," she said, rolling her eyes, "and it had nothing to do with your own squeamishness."

"What's there to be squeamish about?" he said, attempting to sound oblivious to his earlier faux pas.

Barek gave him a knowing look as she put down one dish and picked up another. "Gee, who'd have known the great Mike Logan has size issues?"

"Carolyn!" He managed to keep his jaw from dropping, but lost his battle with the blush that was trying to rise on his face.

"Hah." She finished the dish in her hands and set it down, then crossed her arms and leaned back against the counter as she looked at him. "There's no way you're going to get out of this conversation without embarrassing yourself. I suggest you . . . what was it you said Goren was going to do? . . . 'cut and run,' before you get yourself in deeper."

He frowned. "I have nothing to be embarrassed about."

She raised an eyebrow skeptically, then nodded and said pleasantly, "Ok, well, in that case, let me tell you . . . the guy's flat-top wasn't the only thing on him that was big. Man, sometimes I miss him . . ."

Logan made a choking noise and looked away from her.

* * *

"So," Alex said as they climbed into their car outside of Barek's building, "what do you think they're going to do now that we're gone?"

Goren looked at her blankly. "Why would they be doing anything at all? He's probably on his way out."

She sighed as she started the car. "You can be surprisingly dense sometimes, you know that? Logan and Barek have got some major sexual tension between them, Bobby. Trust me when I say that, one way or another, he's not leaving that apartment for a while yet."

"Nah," he said dismissively, then just put his hands behind his head and watched the road instead of continuing his thought.

"Why 'nah'?" she prompted after a few minutes of silence. "You got some contradictory evidence?"

"You've got no evidence at all, so how could I contradict it?" he replied. "Face it, Eames - you've just got sexual tension between partners on the brain."

"Hey, this has nothing to do with us," she argued. Well, maybe he had a point, but there was no way she would admit it to him. "Logan and Barek have a completely different dynamic."

"So then why are you qualified to make predictions about it?"

She groaned loudly. "You are _impossible_!"

"Sorry." He was quiet as she parked the car in front of her building, ruminating upon the fact that they no longer bothered to discuss who was sleeping where; both apartments now boasted an array of clothing and personal items belonging to each of them, and it was simply a matter of which way Eames happened to point the wheels of the car on a given day.

"Hey, Bobby?" she said as they stepped into the elevator.

"Yeah?"

"You really think I'm imagining the thing with Logan and Barek?"

He thought about that for a moment. "No, I don't necessarily think you're imagining the tension between them . . . but there could be a lot of reasons for that besides attraction. And I would think that Logan's too smart to get himself involved with his partner."

Alex raised her eyebrows. "My god," she exclaimed with exaggerated astonishment as she dug her keys out of her pocket, "did I just hear you imply that Logan's smarter than you, since you apparently didn't know better than to get involved with me?"

He frowned. "That's different."

She didn't look up from the bolt she was unlocking as she snorted. "It's only 'different' because you don't want to answer my question."

"No, it's different because you and I are . . ."

"A special case?" she finished for him. "Everyone's a special case to someone. Just admit that it's possible, Bobby. That's all I'm saying - that, and have a little sympathy if I turn out to be right."

"Fine, fine." He followed her into the apartment, catching her coat as she dropped it toward the floor. "It's a possibility, however remote. Can we talk about something more substantial than office gossip now?"

She paused to kick off her shoes, looking over her shoulder at him. "Sure, I guess. Like what?"

"If we're going to talk to Claire tomorrow," he said, copying her movements and taking off his own shoes, "then we need to talk about how we're going to get past her defenses."

"You're saying you don't think you can charm it out of her?" Alex teased. "What happened to the Goren magic?"

He just shook his head and headed for the bedroom. "You know better than that. Charm's not going to work on a young girl who's already firmly under the spell of another man. We need to catch her off guard."

"Conversation instead of questions? Ease her into it?"

Bobby stopped short a few steps into the bedroom, making her walk into him before she could catch herself. "You know," he said, grabbing her arms to steady her, "I love it when you read my mind." Without giving her time to respond, he leaned down and kissed her. "Now, how about we forget about the sexual tension between Logan and Barek and start focusing on our own?"

* * *

"Thanks so much for coming in this morning," Alex said the next morning, giving Claire Young a sunny smile. Noticing that the girl seemed as nervous as they had feared, she waved her hand dismissively, trying to make it seem like they were about to launch into an insignificant chat. "We just need to get a few more details clear about your mom."

Claire looked over her shoulder at where Goren stood, leaning against the wall, then looked back at Eames and just nodded slightly.

Yeah, Alex thought, suppressing a sigh, the girl was on her guard in a big way. Whether that was because Tony had purposely made her nervous about the interview or whether it was normal talking-to-the-police jitters, she didn't know, but either way, getting any information out of the reluctant Miss Young was going to take some major finesse. And to do that, they needed to make their first question sound as little like a question as possible.

"Drink up," she urged, gesturing to the cup of coffee that sat in front of Claire. "I don't know about you, but I'm _really _not a fan of having to think this early in the morning, especially on the weekend. Have you got a cranky boyfriend waiting at home, annoyed about having to get up so early with you?"

Claire cracked a smile, but only barely. Her eyes remained hooded as she mumbled, "No . . ." Then, seeming to re-think that, she said sheepishly, "Ok, well, kind of. He's more of a night person, so he whined when you guys called . . . but he probably went back to sleep the second I was gone."

"Ahh," Goren said from his corner, sounding amused. "Detective Eames, here, is the same way. If I don't pump her full of coffee as soon as she gets to work, she has me hiding under my desk by noon."

Alex, who considered this a gross exaggeration of a minor truth but knew that it sounded good, shrugged and played along: "He's kidding, Claire. He doesn't hide under his desk; he just wises up and does what I tell him to do."

There was a moment of silence as both detectives tried not to hold their breath, knowing that if Goren hadn't gained Claire's sympathy with that, they'd have a long, hard interview in front of them.

Finally, Claire looked at Goren and rolled her eyes. "Some people are just like that, I guess."

"Tell me about it," Goren agreed. "Everyone seems to think I'm in charge, just because I'm more visible, but my partner's the one who makes most of the decisions." He leaned forward toward Claire and lowered his voice as if he were trying to keep Eames from hearing his next words: "And frankly, it's a lot easier to just go along with her than to start an argument about it."

The girl's posture relaxed slightly and she looked from one detective to the other. "But don't you just get _sick _of it? Tony . . . my boyfriend . . . he's the same way, and like you said, it's easier . . . but sometimes it just drives me _so nuts_!" Her fists clenched as she spoke, and for a moment, before she got hold of herself, she looked like she was about to slam them on the table.

Bobby shrugged elaborately. "Yeah, it can be frustrating, but . . . _you, _of all people, know it's just what works." He glanced at Eames, who was affecting a scowl, and met her eyes for a second to make sure they were still on the same page. When, without changing expression, she communicated that she was with him, he looked back to Claire. "I've gotten some, uh, flack from friends about how I should put in for a new partner, but they don't really know how she and I are together. They think she's just . . . well, a bitch."

Alex, wondering if there was a grain of truth to that statement, snorted, no longer needing to completely fake her displeasure. "Your friends don't realize that without me you couldn't find your way out of a paper bag."

Before Bobby could respond, Claire looked at him and asked, "I bet you guys solve a _lot _of cases, right? You're really good?" When he nodded, she went on, "So it's a trade-off you're willing to accept - letting the other person be in charge, in exchange for a really successful partnership?"

"It'd be a lot more successful if his friends would keep their noses out of his business," Eames mock-snapped, knowing a conversational opportunity when she saw one.

Goren gave her a surprisingly believable pleading look. "They mean well, Eames," he told her tiredly, making it sound as if they'd had this argument a thousand times before. Turning back to Claire, he shrugged. "Can't make them lay off if they don't want to; all we can do is ignore them."

Claire directed a hard glare at Eames. "So just because his friends are watching out for him, you don't like them? You don't want him talking to them? What _is _it with you people?"

Alex assumed a look of confusion. "Which people?"

"You! And Tony! He's the same way; all he does is bitch about my mom and how she should get out of my life . . ." She let her voice trail off there, looking like she'd just realized she'd said too much.

"Tony and your mom didn't get along?" prompted Goren. "Because you know, Detective Eames and my friends can't stand each other."

Claire sighed. "They pretty much hate each other. Hated, I mean. But . . . but well, I think that's pretty normal for a lot of couples. Look at you two."

Goren and Eames exchanged a look; a moment later, Alex started tapping her pen impatiently against her chin. "Sorry," she said abruptly, pushing back her chair, "but you guys are going to have to excuse me. I just remembered I have a report due at noon that I haven't even started yet."

Bobby, who knew very well that there was no such report and his partner was providing him some space for him to bond with Claire, nodded agreeably and waved Eames off.

She paused on the threshold of the room, a gleam in her eye, and looked back at him. "Don't screw anything up while I'm gone, Goren."

"I'll try," I replied meekly, beginning to think of good ways to get back at her once they'd finished this interview.


	20. Claire cracks

Alex stepped into the observation room a few seconds later and quietly shut the door behind her, giving the room's other two occupants a smile as she made for the coffee pot.

"Quite a show you two are putting on in there," Deakins told her with a smirk.

"Yeah," Barek agreed. "Watching Goren let you walk all over him is almost satisfying enough to make me forget about killing my own partner."

"Not another fight," Deakins groaned, dropping his head into his hands. "What now?"

"Logan decided that he and Norman Young really needed to talk man-to-man when they interviewed him this morning," Alex volunteered over her shoulder as she poured a dollop of cream into her coffee and stirred. "So he kicked Barek out halfway through." Turning back toward them, she took a sip of coffee and shrugged philosophically. "Look at it this way, Carolyn - at least you're not the only interview reject in the room. I stand before you a partner-abusing bitch, remember?"

Barek snickered. "Yeah, but at least you volunteered for it. All I got was an elbow in the side and a muttered, 'Let me handle this, ok?'"

Deakins rolled his eyes and said, "And here I was starting to believe you'd gotten him under control, Barek. Eames, I always knew you had some secret methods of controlling Goren, but this is a new one. Was that improv, or did you work it out beforehand?"

Alex, who had been busy scowling down at her coffee, which, as usual, tasted like it had been baking in the machine since the night before, blinked and looked up. "What? Oh, uh, it was half-and-half, really. We knew we'd need to use a light touch with her, and when Goren made that crack about me being cranky in the morning, well . . . the stage was set."

Barek raised her eyebrows. "From what I hear, you _are _cranky until you get coffee in you in the morning."

"Been listening to office gossip again?" Eames asked her teasingly. "You should know better than to believe anything that comes out of Bobby's mouth about my moods."

"You have moods?" Deakins said ingenuously, managing a fair imitation of real astonishment.

Barek, ignoring his crack, grinned at Eames. "Who, me? Gossip? Wouldn't dare!"

"You know, speaking of her partner," Deakins interjected, "why don't we direct our attention to him and his guest for the moment?"

"You mean you don't want to hear more about my moods?" Alex said, widening her eyes.

Deakins glared at her for a long second, then waved a hand at her in exasperation. "I'm staying far away from that topic. Now, let's watch the interview, shall we?"

* * *

"So your mom didn't like Tony, huh?" Goren was saying as he lounged back in his chair, looking for all the world as if having Eames gone allowed him to relax. "She thought he didn't treat you well?"

Claire nodded reluctantly. "She kept trying to get me to break up with him, telling me he didn't 'treat me right' and 'oh, you could find someone so much better than him' . . ."

"But . . . you didn't listen to her."

"I'm an adult, Detective," she retorted, giving him a hard look. "I don't have to do everything my mom tells me to anymore."

Goren nodded slightly. "Well . . . was Tony nervous that you might listen to her? I mean, assuming he knew about what she was saying."

"Tony loves me," Claire said firmly, "and he knows I love him. I have no reason to hide anything from him."

He gave her a pointed look. "That doesn't answer my question, Miss Young. You just acknowledged that he knows your mom doesn't like him," he countered, making an effort to speak in the present tense about her mother, as she had been. "So even if he wasn't worried about you . . . was he worried about her?"

"_I'm _the one who makes the choice to date him, not my mother," Claire replied stubbornly. "What does it matter what she thinks . . . thought?"

Goren, giving her a look of mild surprise, took a moment to ponder that. "Well, I guess you _are_ right about that," he admitted after a second. "Your mother couldn't make you give up Tony any more than my friends can make me give up my partner. But," he added with a halfhearted laugh, "I have to say, I've had some pretty underhanded, uh, tricks played on me by friends trying to do what they think is best for me."

"Tricks?" Claire echoed, looking slightly more interested. "Like what?"

"Well, you know," he said with a shrug. "Spur-of-the-moment plots, mostly. One guy keeps trying to get Detective Eames to spend more time with him, to keep her away from me."

Claire smirked. "Sounds more like he wants her for himself, to me."

"Possibly." He glanced quickly over his shoulder at the mirror, wondering what his audience was making of his hastily-constructed stories, then looked back at Claire. "Then there was the guy who threatened to tell my boss that she and I were . . . well, you know."

"Ouch," Claire said, sympathy obvious in her voice. "That's playing dirty. Would you get fired if someone told your boss that?"

"Probably, yeah." He shrugged. "But I talked my friend out of that one, at least."

"Everyone seems to think they know what you need, huh?" she said with a nod. "I guess it's universal."

"Your friends too?"

"Everyone I know, pretty much," Claire said with a roll of her eyes. "My friends, my parents . . ."

"Been playing tricks on you?" Goren said, nodding his understanding.

Claire shook her head as if she couldn't believe it, herself. "You could say that. Jess and Kathryn took us out to a club one night and tried to bribe another girl to hit on Tony, to make me angry."

"That's low," he agreed.

"My mom . . . she . . ." Claire stopped and sighed. "Maybe I shouldn't be saying this, you know? She was a good person, it's just . . ."

"She was a mother," Goren supplied reassuringly. "No matter what she did, she . . . she did it because she thought it was best for you. I don't think that can be held against her."

She shrugged. "Yeah, I know. It just feels like I shouldn't be saying anything about her mistakes."

"Well, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Goren offered, trying to inject just enough sympathy into his voice to make her feel like he was pitying her. "I have no right to ask."

Claire's eyes softened slightly as she looked at him, shaking her head. "No, you're right. You're probably the only person I'm going to get to talk to who _does _understand it."

Rather than make a response, he just leaned back in his chair, fingering his pen distractedly as he kept his eyes on the girl across the table.

In a more depressed version of his movement, Claire slumped down in her chair. "My mom was always coming up with reasons . . . things she said she saw or heard . . . for why I shouldn't stay with Tony. Once she said Sophie - that's one of her friends - saw him buying drugs in Chinatown. Another time she said she noticed money missing from my checking account that my dad handles."

Goren nodded slowly. "And those weren't true?"

"No!" she said indignantly. "I asked Tony and he said no, first of all. Plus I . . . I went through his stuff when she told me about the drugs, and there wasn't anything like that!"

"Hmm." He leaned forward to make a note in his portfolio, then looked back up at her. "How recently was that?"

Claire blinked, surprised by his question. "Uh, I don't know . . . maybe two weeks ago?"

"Did Tony know you went through his things?"

Her face paled slightly. "He . . . he, uh, came home while I was doing it."

"Did he get angry?" Goren pressed.

"Wouldn't you?" Claire shot back. "If you came home and found someone you loved searching your stuff because they didn't trust you?"

He leaned forward again, ostensibly to make another note but, in reality, more to hide the expression of frustration that was about to appear on his face. At that moment, he would have done just about anything to get Eames back into the room; it would be difficult to catch Claire sufficiently off-guard by himself. "Is that how he reacted?" he asked Claire. "He thought it meant you didn't trust him?"

"Well, it did."

He allowed that point to slide, in favor of moving on: "How does he act when he gets mad? Eames, she . . . she, uh, stops speaking to me."

Claire gave him an understanding smile at that. "Tony yells a lot. I think I like that better than getting the silent treatment."

"Yeah, I think I would prefer yelling, too." He paused, trying to decide exactly how to deliver the next part of his question. "Does he ever get physical with you, when he's mad?"

Claire jerked her eyes away from his, looking around the room as if she suddenly found it incredibly fascinating. "Tony wouldn't hit me," she managed, not sounding totally convinced even as she said it.

"I know he wouldn't," Goren agreed immediately. "But hitting isn't the only thing I consider physical. Does he ever, I don't know, grab your arm hard enough to leave bruises? Back you into a corner?"

She stiffened a little more at every word he said, and when he was done, she kept her gaze away from him. "I don't know what you're trying to get me to say, but Tony doesn't like to hurt me. Or anyone else."

"Doesn't like to?" he repeated impassively. "I do a lot of things I 'don't like to' do."

"Why are you doing this?" she hissed, jumping to her feet. "I thought you understood!"

"Miss Young, please," he said, holding out a calming hand. "I didn't mean to upset you." _Yeah, right. Sure I didn't. But now I've got you where I want you!_

She sat back down, but kept her wary eyes on his face, as if waiting for his next attack.

Goren stifled a sigh, recognizing the determination on her face. He needed to put another card on the table, but all he had left was something, well . . . less than realistic. "Look, Claire," be began, then added, "uh, can I call you Claire?"

She nodded wordlessly, still glaring at him.

"Thanks. Look, Claire, like you said, there's not a lot of people who understand the type of situation you and I are both in. The trade-off, as you phrased it. So I . . . I, uh . . ." He looked down, trying to seem embarrassed. "I was kind of hoping to find out from you whether my relationship with Detective Eames is 'normal,' for this type of, uh, situation."

Claire blinked, looking confused. "What do you mean, 'normal'?"

He glanced over at the mirror again, coughed, and unbuttoned the cuff of his shirt.

* * *

In the observation room, Alex couldn't quite suppress something that resembled a yelp.

"That noise mean you know what he's doing?" Deakins asked, continuing to stare curiously at the scene on the other side of the glass.

"Yeah, Eames, do tell," Barek said with a grin. "What's he going to show her?"

Eames just stared in horrified fascination as Goren displayed the scratches she'd left on his forearm during their activities of the night before. She didn't have to listen to know that he was telling the girl that Alex had left the marks; she was a whole lot more interested in what excuse he provided and whether her companions in the room bought the explanation.

A moment later, Barek looked at her with raised eyebrows. "His punishment for looking in your desk, huh? I knew you were territorial," she added, shaking her head, "but this . . . this is going a little far."

"Shut up," Eames snapped. "You know I wouldn't do that to him."

"Well, they do look female-sized," Deakins contributed thoughtfully. "You sure you didn't do it?"

Tossing her hair, she gave him what she hoped was an offended look. "Why would I _scratch _my partner? Come on, guys, do I even look like the type of person who'd scratch instead of punch?"

"Ok," Barek allowed, "you have a point there. I think Claire's buying it, though . . . check it out." She gestured to the window that Alex had turned away from.

"Those are man-sized," Deakins said, staring hard at the marks on Claire's upper arm that she was now showing to Goren. "Damn, Eames. How do you two _do _this?"

She shrugged and smiled, glad attention had shifted away from Goren's injuries. "This is all him. I just helped with the set-up."

"Well, then how does _he _do it?"

"Pure talent. Now listen to what she's telling him," she ordered.

* * *

"He didn't mean to hurt me," Claire insisted to the detective sitting next to her. "Just, you know, he was worked up from seeing me go through his stuff, and when he grabbed me, he used too much strength."

He nodded encouragingly. "I know. My partner certainly didn't intend to leave marks on me, either." _Oh, if only you knew how true that is, _he thought, wondering what kind of chaos was going on around Eames in the observation room right then. "May I say something else?" he asked. "Something you might not like?"

Claire's eyes narrowed, but she nodded carefully. "I guess."

"Thank you. You should . . . you know, you should try to protect yourself. Your boyfriend is much larger than you, and even if he doesn't mean to hurt you, he could. I . . ." He shrugged. "If I were you, I'd consider getting a little training in self-defense, and staying with your father or a friend for a few days while you do it."

"Self-defense?" Claire repeated. "You mean like hurting him?"

"No, of course not," he said, wishing he could just shake some sense into the girl but knowing it would blow the uneasy rapport he'd built with her. "I want you to learn to keep him from hurting _you_. You don't necessarily have to hurt him back in order to do that."

She shook her head, but looked thoughtful. "Detective, I don't think I really need to . . ."

Goren patted her hand, realizing with amusement a second later how fatherly the gesture must have looked. "You don't need to decide now, ok? Here's my card." He slid the card across the table to her and smiled. "Call me if you need help or if you decide you want to learn." He paused a second and then, unable to restrain himself any longer, added, "I . . . I'm serious, Claire. If you need _any _help . . . with Tony or anyone else . . . you call me, ok?"

She nodded and gave him a weak smile as she stood up. "Ok. I will. And you . . . maybe you should stop letting Detective Eames have her way so much, huh?"

Ushering her to the door of the room, he grinned. "I'll think about that. This officer will escort you downstairs. Thank you, Claire."


	21. The lunch meeting

"God," Barek said to Eames half an hour later as they watched Logan approach carrying two bags of Chinese take-out, "even though I know it's not her fault, I still wanted to just reach out and shake her."

"And shout something along the lines of, 'You deserve better than scum like him'?" Eames supplied with a smile. "Agreed. Probably Goren, too." She glanced at her partner, who was hard at work typing up the main points of his interview with Claire Young. "Although actually, I think he'd rather go right to the source and take a swing or two at Tony, judging by the way he was dealing with Claire."

Goren looked up at the two women as Logan dropped the bags of food on his desk. "I may not be looking at you, but I _can _hear you, detectives."

Barek turned slightly red, but Eames just grinned at him. "You going to deny that you'd love to get Tony alone for a few minutes?"

"No," he muttered, returning his eyes to the computer in front of him.

"I take it she gave you something good?" Logan asked, looking around at the faces surrounding Goren's desk.

"Good, yes," Barek said with a sigh. "Pleasant, no. What'd you get from Norman Young in your . . ." She faked a dramatic shiver as she finished archly, "_Man to man _talk?"

Logan glanced at Eames, looking for help, but she just gave him a pleasant, yet dangerous, smile. "Yeah, uh, sorry about that," he managed, not looking directly at his partner. He might not be the brightest crayon in the box, but he knew enough to be scared of Carolyn Barek right about now. "He just . . . didn't seem to want to talk with you around."

She glared at him for a long second until she got the satisfaction of seeing him squirm, then smiled and turned away to begin sorting through the take-out cartons. "Who got the dumplings?"

"Me!" Alex exclaimed, snatching the food out of Barek's hands.

Barek raised an eyebrow. "Well, I guess it's been a while since _someone _had breakfast."

Eames looked thoughtful. "Bobby, did we have breakfast?"

"What?" Keeping his hands on the keyboard, he glanced up at her. "Uh, no, I don't think so."

"Yeah, that's what I thought." Looking back at Barek, she shrugged. "Busy morning. Now hand over my egg roll."

" 'Busy,' huh?" Logan echoed with a smirk. "I'll just bet it was."

"And speaking of 'busy'," added his partner, "where _did _you get those scratches, Goren?"

Eames suddenly looked like she found her lunch incredibly interesting. Keeping her eyes down and her mouth full, she listened for Goren's explanation, whatever it would be.

"I'm not answering that question, Detective -" he started to tell Barek calmly.

Before he could say anything else, Barek interrupted him: "And just why is that, Goren?"

He just gave her a casual smile. "You didn't let me finish."

Alex looked up and caught the glint in his eye. He was preparing to volley something right back to the other pair, she realized. Which meant that he'd found ammunition. Which meant . . .

She took another look at Barek and finally saw it. Smothering a giggle, she looked at Goren. "You mind if I . . ."

He waved his hand invitingly. "Go right ahead."

"I believe what my esteemed partner was about to say," she said, looking at Barek cagily, "is that he's not answering that question until you explain where you got that beautiful hickey."

"I . . . what?" Barek clapped a hand to her neck reflexively. "What are you talking about? I don't have a . . ."

"Right here," Goren said, reaching out to point to the mark just above her collarbone.

"Hey!" Barek took a step back and slapped his hand away, glaring at him. "It's not a -"

"Sure it's not," Alex broke in. "Maybe your partner would like to explain what it _is_, then?"

Logan shoveled a forkful of rice into his mouth and shook his head emphatically.

"Turnabout's fair play, guys," Alex reminded them. "But we'll let it go for now and save that topic for after-work conversation. Mike, tell us about your interview with Norman Young."

"Yeah, Logan," Deakins said, catching the tail end of her words as he approached the four detectives. "Fill us in." Looking down at the food scattered across Goren's desk, he added, "And some of that better be for me."

Logan passed him an aluminum container and a plastic fork. "General Tso's chicken," he said with a grin. "Good?"

"Good." Deakins took the container and pried it open. "Very good." He dug his fork in, then mumbled through the first mouthful, "Now, tell us what Young had to say."

"Gabrielle Young hated Tony Meadows," Logan began, then paused to eat some more rice. "And," he went on, swallowing, "Norman Young still hates him. They think he treats their daughter like shit -"

"Which he does," Alex pointed out.

"Which he does," Logan acknowledged. "Young says that ever since Claire started dating the guy, she's been pulling away from her parents and her friends bit-by-bit."

"Anyone else feel like we're living a chapter in a psych textbook?" Barek said, looking around at her companions. "This is a little too easy."

Logan looked confused and Eames just shrugged, but Goren nodded. "It does seem neater than you'd expect - but on the other hand, there's no indication any of this is a set-up."

"You guys are forgetting," Deakins threw in, "that something that's in textbooks is there because it's something that the majority of cases involve. Crooks are generally a lot more less original than we give them credit for."

"Good point," Barek said with a nod.

"Thank you." With that, Deakins seemed to tune them out again as he returned his attention to his lunch.

"Are you guys done?" Logan asked, raising his eyebrows. "Because I kind of thought I was in the middle of telling you something."

"So keep talking," Eames said with a shrug, pushing a fortune cookie toward him.

"He didn't know much about Tony's background. Said the kid doesn't talk about himself much, unless its to brag or something. He thinks there was a girlfriend before Claire, one who Tony broke up with in favor of her, but he had no idea of the name. Details of how they got together are sketchy, too, which didn't particularly surprise me."

"I certainly didn't spend a lot of time telling my dad about the past history of every guy I dated," Eames agreed.

"Me either," said Barek. "I saved that for my friends."

"Speaking of which," Deakins broke in, waving his fork to get their attention, "I assume you _are _talking to her friends again sometime soon?"

"Of course." Barek cracked open her fortune cookie and read the slip of paper inside. " 'You will make great discoveries when you truly open your eyes'," she read. "That's a boring fortune. I want another one." She reached for the pile of cookies, but her hand hit only bare desk as everyone reached out to claim their own cookies before she could get to them. Foiled, she crossed her arms and frowned at them.

Careful to avoid her glare, Logan broke open the cookie Alex had pushed toward him a minute ago. " 'He who plays tricks will soon have tricks played on him'."

"Well, that one's appropriate," Eames commented with a grin. "Better watch your back, Logan."

"Very funny," he shot back. "How 'bout you read us _your _fortune, Eames?"

She stuck her tongue out at him and opened her cookie. " 'Happiness comes from what you are, not what you have'. Ok, I can get behind that one, as cheesy as it is. Bobby, what's yours?"

Goren blinked and looked down at the cookie lying in front of him. "I have to open it?"

"Yes," she said huffily, "or I'm going to open it for you and add 'in bed' to the end of whatever it says inside."

Snickers answered this comment, and he glared around the desks before conceding defeat and opening his fortune cookie. " 'The kitten that purrs on your lap will soon be the cat that scratches you'," he read. "What does that mean?"

"Well, it did mention 'scratches,'" Barek pointed out. "Maybe . . .?"

"Zip it," Eames ordered hastily, elbowing the other woman. " Bobby, I think it means you shouldn't underestimate people, even if they look weak."

"Case in point: you?" Logan asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Sure," Alex said cheerfully. "I don't look like I could kick your ass, but you better believe I can do it."

He swallowed dramatically. "Yes ma'am. Point taken."

Deakins cleared his throat. "This whole discussion is very amusing, but you guys mind if we get back to the information that actually matters for the case?"

"Not until you read us your fortune, Captain," Eames informed him.

He snorted. "I don't believe in those things. They're -"

"Who said anything about believing?" asked Barek. "It's just for the entertainment value, as far as I'm concerned. Come on, read it!"

"Oh, fine. You guys are worse than my kids, I swear!" He pulled apart the two halves of his cookie and drew out the slip of paper. " 'Authority works best when hardly used'. What the . . .?"

Logan grinned. "I believe that's Confuscious-talk for 'Get off your detectives' backs,' Captain."

Deakins rolled his eyes. "When was the last time any of you did what I told you to do, anyway? I don't need a fortune cookie to tell me that my best teams work best when left alone."

"Amen," muttered Alex.

"So, Mike," Barek said thoughtfully, turning to her partner. "You didn't say if Claire's father suspected any abuse. Did you guys talk about that?"

"Wha?" Logan looked up from the fortune cookie pieces that he'd become absorbed in. "Oh, yeah we did. A little, at least."

"How little?"

"He never saw any marks on her." He popped another piece of the cookie in his mouth and added as he chewed, "He said that if there had been, he and his wife would have pulled her in so fast that her head would have spun . . ."

"I sense a 'but' coming on," Alex said as Logan let his sentence trail off.

He nodded. "Yeah. He said Gabrielle was really suspicious. As far as he knew, she had no proof, but he knew she was trying to get Claire away from him before he _did _do something to her."

"Hello, motive," Barek said with a low whistle.

"Did Gabrielle discuss with him what her next move would be, if she did find evidence?" asked Goren, jotting down a note in his portfolio.

Logan shrugged. "He wasn't sure, except to say that he didn't think she would hesitate to bring out the big guns if she really thought Claire was in danger."

"Big guns like . . . the police?" Eames said. "Or like pulling her financial support?"

"He thought she wouldn't be above either of those, but she hadn't discussed specifics with him."

"Someone like Gabrielle Young," Deakins said, nodding, "is not always the greatest team player. If she thought she had something, she might have been playing it close to the vest until she could strike."

Barek sighed. "So we know from Claire that Tony isn't averse to manhandling her, although he might not have actually hit her yet. We know from Claire's father than her mother was desperate to get her out before that happened, to the point where she might go on the offensive if she felt she needed to . . ."

"We need those ex-girlfriends," Eames said, thumping her fist on her desk emphatically. "His parents are dead, and that means the exes are going to be the only ones who can give us insight into how Tony would deal with something like that."

"Ok," Logan said with a shrug, "so we man the phones. I got nothing better to do with my afternoon; how 'bout you guys?"

The other three detectives looked at one another, then copied Logan's shrug.

"Hell," Barek said with a grin, "I'll take it into the night if we need to; it's not like I've got any hot dates or anything."

Alex coughed pointedly, but didn't comment about Barek's dating options. "Anything's better than sitting at my desk playing solitaire and trying to keep Goren awake."

"I beg your pardon?" Bobby said with a look of exaggerated hurt. "I don't fall asleep at my desk, Eames. And _you _are years past playing solitaire, Miss 'Warcraft III'."

She glared at him. "Bobby!"

"Don't even bother," Deakins said, shaking his head and lowering a hand between them as if separating a fight. "I don't want to know, anyway. Get to work guys. Let me know if you get anything."

A mumbled chorus of "yes, sir"s followed him as he headed for his office, still wondering at the weird things his detectives could find to fight about.


	22. A woman scorned

A/N: We're approaching the end here . . . the story will almost definitely be done before chapter 30, and quite possibly before chapter 25. But never fear, I'm working on another one of those oneshots that insist on growing, so you'll still have things to read after we find out who killed Gabby Young!

* * *

"Got one!" Barek called an hour later, waving a slip of paper in the general direction of the other three detectives, who were sitting around the conference table and all had phones pressed to their ears. 

Eames hung up her phone a minute later and grinned. "Me too."

"As usual," Barek said with a smirk and an exaggerated sigh, "the the boys are just too slow."

"Better than too quick," Logan muttered, covering the mouthpiece of his phone so the person on the other end didn't hear the comment.

The women looked at each other, confirming that he'd been implying what they thought he'd been implying, then burst out laughing. "He's got issues," Barek explained to Alex. "Don't try to tell him about your college boyfriend again, either."

"Thank you," Logan said decorously into the phone. Then he slammed it down and glared at his partner. "Carolyn!"

"What?" she asked innocently.

"You know 'what'!"

"Hmm, sorry, no I don't." She turned back to Eames and gave her a cheerful smile. "What's the name of the girl you got?"

Alex, who had been watching Logan's reaction with fascination, blinked and looked back to the other woman. "Melinda Parker. Yours?"

"Melinda Parker. Damn."

"And Melinda Parker for me, too," Goren said as he thanked his caller and hung up the phone.

"Well," Logan said with a shrug, "I guess it's a safe bet he dated a girl named Melinda Parker. Anyone get contact information?"

"Me." Barek handed him the slip of paper she'd been waving. "Got her phone number, at least."

"Same." Alex tore a page from her notebook and handed it to Logan.

Logan, one paper in each hand, looked expectantly at Goren. "How 'bout you?"

Bobby shook his head.

"Like I said," Barek teased, "then men are always a little behind."

"You want to go find yourself a new partner?" Logan asked sharply..

Barek blinked, taken aback by the outburst, then shook her head. "I was just kidding around, Mike."

"Whatever." He put the two papers down on his desk. "Who wants to call this girl?"

"Bobby?" Alex suggested, looking at her partner. "You did good with Claire; think you'll have the same luck with another girl her age?"

"Not particularly." He looked around at the other detectives. "Anyone else want to give it a try, or am I being elected by default?"

Logan, still tight-lipped from his partner's teasing, shook his head. Barek watched him, then sighed deeply. "I'll do it if I have to, but I have a feeling you're a lot better at being sympathetic than I am."

"How about we ask her to come down here, instead?" said Eames. "That way we can all get a piece of her, or not, depending on what she gives us."

"Works for me," Barek said with a nod. "What about you guys?" Both women turned to look at their counterparts. A second later, both women sighed in exasperation at what they saw:

Goren had his eyes on his partner's hands; Logan appeared to be staring at Barek's chest. Both men looked up, nodded distractedly, then returned their eyes to their tasks.

Barek and Eames looked at each other and rolled their eyes. "New bra, Carolyn?" Alex asked with a pointed grin, eyeing Logan, who was still fixated on his partner's body.

Barek smirked and raised her eyebrows. "Get your nails done lately, Alex?"

"Boys!" Alex rapped out when their joking failed to distract the men. "Can you save the ogling for _after _we talk to Melinda Parker?"

Bobby recovered first, looking at her with wide-eyed innocence. "Who's ogling?"

"Don't even try it, Goren. You're busted, fair and square," she informed him archly, reaching out to give his shoulder a playful push. "Although I have to say, Logan seems to be a lot worse off than you."

Barek very deliberately crossed her arms over her chest. Deprived of his view and belatedly realizing he'd been spoken to, Logan looked up at her. "Huh?"

She snorted her disgust. "You can be such a pig sometimes, you know that?"

He scowled at her, then tried to act like he hadn't done anything out of the ordinary. Propping his feet up on the table and leaning back in his chair, he said smoothly, "So? Who's making the call?"

"Oh, for god's sake," Barek snapped, snatching her phone off the hook, "I'll do it while you try to get your blood flowing back up to your brain."

Alex choked on a giggle and ended up in a coughing fit for a few seconds. When she recovered, she looked over at her partner. "Uh, Bobby . . . can I talk to you out there?" she asked, jerking her head toward the door leading to the squad room.

Looking slightly nervous at the summons, he nodded and followed her outside. "Uh, Eames, I'm sorry. I was -"

She abruptly turned to face him. "Now do you believe me about the tension between Logan and Barek?"

He looked blank for a second, then frowned. "Yeah, I guess I'm starting to."

"You're the one who spotted the hickey!"

"Good point," he said thoughtfully. "Did you drag me out here just to say 'I told you so'?"

"Basically," she admitted sheepishly. "And to remind you to keep _your _eyes on your work, too. What happened to subtlety?"

"Uh, sorry. It's just . . ." He looked down at her hands. "You have very nice hands."

"Well thank you," she said grudgingly, "but can you save the admiration for after-hours from now on?"

"Sorry," he said again, trying to look appropriately chastened.

She smiled reluctantly. "You are not, you big liar. Come on, let's go back in before they kill each other."

* * *

"Would one of you like to tell me what's going on here?" Melinda Parker snapped later that afternoon. "All the guy who called me said was that it was about my ex." She shoved her heavy fall of blonde hair over her shoulder for the fourth time since she sat down, glaring at the two detectives in front of her.

Alex, unconsciously imitating one of her partner's habits, stood up and spun her chair around, then sat back down straddling it as she looked at Melinda with a direct gaze. "You mean Tony Meadows?"

"Of course that's who I mean," the girl snapped, almost snarling at the mention of his name. "Now can we get on with it?"

Barek took a moment to compose her thoughts, then turned and studied the the girl. Melinda Parker resembled Claire Young in many ways - young, slightly built, and blonde - but she appeared to be a lot more spirited than Claire was. If Melinda Parker had something to say about Tony Meadows, Barek decided, she was going to make sure they heard it. "Can we call you Melinda?"

She scowled. " 'Mel' is fine. Now . . .?" Her tone remained impatient and she began to tap her foot.

"Sure," Barek said after a quick glance at her temporary partner. "I take it you aren't on good terms with Tony anymore?"

"You take it right," Melinda said, twirling her soda can in her hands as if she was trying to keep them busy. "He's worthless and he's scum."

"Ok, so you're on _very _not good terms with him," Alex quipped. "Why is that?"

Melinda snorted derisively. "You got a few hours to hear the list?"

"How about you just give us a quick summary," Barek replied evenly.

The girl sighed. "Fine. Let's see," she began, preparing to tick things off on her fingers as she listed them, "there's the way he always 'borrowed' money without asking, there's the bags of weed I kept finding in his car . . . oh yeah, and there's his bad habit of knocking girls around. That do it for you?" Finally looking up from her soda, she looked hard at the two women, as if daring them to challenge her statement.

Alex, whose mouth had snapped closed at the mention of abuse, nodded slightly. "Yeah, I think that's a pretty good starting point. Anything to add, Carolyn?" she went on, looking to Barek.

"Tell us about the abuse," Barek said promptly. "Physical, emotional? Where did he hit you and what set him off?"

Melinda's eyes narrowed and she regarded Barek with suspicion. "Tony did something, didn't he. Oh, no," she exclaimed, looking like something horrifying had just occurred to her. "Please tell me that girl wasn't stupid enough to stay with him and get herself killed."

"Which girl is that?" Eames asked carefully.

She shook her head. "Claire somebody. I didn't pay too much attention; I was busy hightailing it out of Tony's firing range when I found them together."

"Hmm." Barek struggled to hide her eagerness as she said, "You think he's capable of killing a woman? Is that what you're saying?"

"I wouldn't put it past him. He cracked one of my ribs once and didn't think twice about it."

The two detectives exchanged a look. "Was he always physically abusive?" Barek asked. "As opposed to emotionally, I mean. Or did the hitting only start as the relationship progressed?"

"Oh, Tony's a real sweetheart in the beginning," Melinda said scathingly. "Right up until the first time you don't do something he wants. Then you get the guilt trip about how you must not love him. If that doesn't work, next time he pretends like he wants to break up with you."

"Did you ever try to break up with him?" Eames broke in.

"Sure. The first time he hit me, which I guess was about a year after we started dating, you better believe I got the hell out of there. He called me the next day and wouldn't stop calling and telling me how much he loved me until I agreed to get back together with him." She shook her head, suddenly seeming to lose some of her fighting spirit. "Stupid, right? I even knew it was a bad idea, but I kept doing it anyway."

Eames shook her head and said firmly, "Maybe it was bad judgment on your part, but it's sure as hell not your fault that he hit you, no matter _how_ bad your judgment was."

Barek nodded. "She's right, you know. Now, did he have . . . a preferred method of abusing you, or a special part of the body he liked to hit most often? Anything like that?"

Melinda grimaced at the remembered pain. "Oh, he's a big fan of kidney punches. That, and pushing you against the wall and holding you there by the neck while he starts a 'discussion'."

"Sounds like you went through a lot while you were with him," Eames said gently.

"Don't you pity me!" the girl said fiercely, turning on the detective. "I made my mistakes and I learned from them and now I would like nothing better than to nail Tony Meadows to the wall, so for the love of god, would you people just tell me why I'm here!" She stopped there, gasping for breath after her outburst.

Barek raised her eyebrows and looked at Eames, who shrugged an assent. "The girl Tony left you for . . ." Barek began, choosing her words carefully as she went, "Her name _is _Claire. Claire Young, to be specific. And yes, she's still with him."

"Is she . . . is she ok?"

Alex drew in a pained breath at that. "Claire is alive, and as far as we can tell without strip-searching her, she doesn't appear to have been physically abused, at least recently."

"So if Claire's ok . . . then what? Are you going after him for abuse and you need a complaining witness?"

"That's a possibility for the future," Barek remarked. "But no, that's not exactly why you're here. Claire is alive, but Claire's mother . . . she's not. We think Tony might have killed her."

"Because of Claire?" Melinda said, eyes widening. "He killed . . . she's really dead? God," she muttered, closing her eyes as if trying to block out this new knowledge, "and I was sitting at home thinking that all that mattered was that I got out and that the next poor fool he trapped would have to fight for herself, like I did. I shouldn't be surprised he finally fucking killed someone. What did I expect?" Seeming to run out of words, she dropped her head into her hands for a moment and took a deep breath, then let it out. "Ok," she finally continued when she raised her head to look at the two detectives,her face a mask of resolve. "What do you want to know? I'll tell you everything I can, right down to what size underwear he wears."

"Uh, we'll skip the underwear for now," Alex said with a slight smile. "Let me walk you through this, ok?"

"Sure."

"We're working with the theory that Tony killed Mrs. Young, probably to protect his hold over her daughter. We know that Claire was with him the night of the murder, because she's his alibi. She claims that he was never even in her mother's apartment that night, and he and she spent the night at home."

"We think she's lying," Barek explained, "to protect him. Either he's got her convinced that he's innocent and faking an alibi is a white lie, or she's so scared of him that she's doing it even though she knows he's guilty."

"She admitted to us that Tony had been rough with her - she's got some bruises on her arms - but defended him to the detective who interviewed her." Eames shrugged. "We haven't been able to find the weapon that was used, let alone connect it with Tony. The crime scene technicians are batting zero. The only one who can give us what we need to arrest him . . ."

". . . is Claire," Melinda finished. "Jesus, the poor girl. She won't talk?"

"Oh, she doesn't have much of a problem talking," Barek said. "It's just that, whether consciously or unconsciously, she's censoring everything she tells us."

"Ok . . ." the girl said slowly. "So what do you need me for, if she's the one you need to talk to?"

The detectives exchanged a quick look in anticipation of the next, most important question. "We want you to talk to her."

"Me?" Melinda said, shocked. "Why me?"

"Because," Barek said, leaning forward and pinning Melinda with the intensity of her eyes, "you know the way he works. And you can tell Claire about it. She thinks he acts like he does because he loves her; we need you to explain to her that it's a repeated pathology, not a gesture of affection."

"A pathology," Melinda mused. "I guess that's one word for it. What do you expect to happen if I can convince her?"

"We want her to tell us the truth about where Tony was the night her mother was murdered."

"Damn, you people don't ask much, do you?" she said sarcastically. "I'm willing to give it a try, but I can't promise you I'll be able to convince her."

"We know, Mel," Alex said reassuringly. "And if you can't, well, we'll find another way to work on her. But you're our best hope."

"Yeah, I know." Squaring her shoulders as if she'd just taken on an important duty, Melinda looked from one detective to the other. "So . . . when are we going to do this thing?"


	23. Duking it out

A/N: A little interim fluff before we get back to the case...enjoy!

* * *

"So," Barek said that night, biting into a breadstick as she and Alex sat at her kitchen table, waiting for the men to return with their dinner, "you think this is going to work? I mean, for someone who lets her boyfriend walk all over her, Claire's a tough nut to crack."

"Yeah," Alex said with a shrug, "but if anyone can crack her, Melinda can. I don't remember the last time I came across someone _that_ intense and determined who actually hadn't committed a crime!"

"Hmm." Barek slid the plate of breadsticks over to the other woman. "Eat some. And don't tell me you don't eat carbs, because I've seen how you devour pizza crust."

Alex grinned. "I wasn't going to say that, anyway. I'm always up for some good bread." She glanced down at her watch, then looked up and picked up a breadstick. "How much longer do you think they'll be?"

"Where'd we send them, again?"

"Calabrese's Pizza, Carolyn. Same as it was five minutes ago when you asked me the same question."

Barek smirked. "You getting a pizza all to yourself again?"

"Nah, that's only for special occasions or long nights." She paused for a second, looking crafty, then smiled. "You going to refuse to share your pizza with Logan again?"

"Now, what kind of partner would I be if I did that?"

Alex blinked. "Uh, you'd be the kind of partner you were two days ago. Come on, there's no way he can kiss enough ass to turn you around in 48 hours." She paused, smirking. "That is, unless he's got some hidden talents you want to tell me about before the boys come back."

"Huh? He . . . I . . ." Unable to think of something non-damaging to say, she grabbed another breadstick and concentrated on eating it.

Alex snickered. "You might as well spill it. You know my dirty secret; it's only fair that I know yours."

"No." She gnawed harder on the breadstick.

"Yes." Alex grabbed another breadstick for herself and stared Carolyn down while the two of them furiously stuffed breadsticks in their mouths. "If you don't tell me," she said through a mouthful of bread a minute later, "Bobby's going to get curious and find out for himself."

"No," Barek repeated, more firmly this time. The effect was ruined by the spray of half-chewed bread crumbs that flew out of her mouth along with the word, and by the time she'd managed to swallow enough to speak, Alex was draped over the back of her chair, laughing.

"Carolyn," Alex said a few seconds later, unable to hide her smirk as she tried to make her words sound semi-serious, "you've got a goddamn hickey on your neck. If it's not from Logan, then you have no excuse for hiding anything and I want to know who it _is _from!"

It was a neat trap, Barek realized. If it was from her partner - and they both knew it was - then her refusal to name him would be tantamount to naming him anyway. "Would you believe me if I tell you it's from some guy I picked up at a club?"

Alex snorted. "No. And even if I were tempted to believe that, need I remind you that you've spent the past couple nights with me, Bobby, and Logan, and not at some club?"

"Well, I -"

"_But_," Alex interrupted with a grin, holding up a hand to stop her speaking, "if that does turn out to be true, I want the name of that club!"

Barek gasped in mock-horror. "I'm telling Goren," she said, grinning as she imitated a tattling child's tone. "So there."

"I didn't say I wasn't going to bring Bobby with me."

"Bring me with you to where?" Bobby called from just inside the apartment.

"We leave you alone for half an hour and you're already far enough gone to talk about taking him on vacation or something?" Logan threw in. "Have you girls been drinking?"

"Nah." Alex mock-toasted him with the last breadstick, then broke it in half and gave half to Carolyn. "High on carbs, maybe, but not anything else."

"And she wasn't talking about vacation, anyway," Barek informed him.

"Oookay," Logan replied as he walked into the kitchen, then did an about-face to look at Bobby, who was still standing by the door. _We're screwed_, he mouthed to the other man, mimicking a gun against his head. Then, turning back toward the women, he gave them a pleasant smile. "Evening, ladies. I believe you ordered a few pizzas?"

Taking his cue, Bobby moved forward to lean against the door jamb and held out the pizza box he'd been carrying.

Barek took the box, then snorted. "That gun thing was completely lacking in subtlety, Mike. You're not supposed to do your complaining in front of the people you're complaining about."

"Hey," Logan snapped, roughly setting his pizza down on the counter, "do I _look _like I need your advice on this?"

Stung, she turned away from him, staring down at the fake wood-grain tabletop. A second later, a quarter of a breadstick slid into her field of vision and she looked up at Eames, who gave her a comforting smile and waved her hand, silently telling her to forget about his comment.

"Hey, Barek?" Alex said after the moment of tension had passed.

She swallowed the breadstick remnant. "What?"

"You got any beer? I think tonight's a night for drinking."

Carolyn just looked at her for a second, then blinked. "Uh, yeah, I think so. Check the fridge."

Alex did so, standing up and purposely pushing past Logan without an apology. "Looks like you've got a six-pack. That'll do. You want one?"

"Eh, what the hell," Barek sighed. "Sure, hand one over. I've got another six in the pantry, anyway." She held out a hand for the bottle and set it down on the table. "What about you, Goren?" she asked, turning to face him. "You want one?"

He shook his head with a resigned smile. "Not if Eames is drinking."

"Bobby, that was _one _night, _years _ago!" Alex protested. "And I think I can be forgiven for trying to drink my way out of the Christmas Party from Hell."

"The what?" the other two detectives chorused.

"Long story," Alex said, shaking her head.

"She's a sleepy drunk," Bobby supplied. "Not to mention the getting sick. You know I'm right," he persisted, turning to his partner. "If you get drunk, I'm going to have to carry you to the car and drive you home."

"Bite me," she said, defiantly taking a swig of her beer.

Barek, realizing their quasi-argument was over, took a sip of her own beer and reached for the pizza box that was sitting on the table. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm starving. Can we get down to the eating?"

"Works for me," Logan said as he leaned past her to grab a slice for himself.

"Me too," Alex said, swooping to get her share.

Bobby watched with amusement and then, when they were all busy eating, claimed his own slice.

* * *

Two hours later, Barek and Eames were sprawled on the floor, giggling at the horrible auditions being shown on American Idol and working on their fifth and fourth beers, respectively.

The two men, deciding that if the women wanted the floor, they weren't going to complain, were comfortably ensconced on the couch and the loveseat, watching their partners with bemusement. "How many can she have before she gets _really _wacky?" Logan asked Bobby, nodding toward Eames.

Goren sighed. "Four."

Nodding, Logan said, "The sounds about right for her. I have no idea what Barek's tolerance is, but I have a feeling I'm going to find out tonight."

"You," Barek announced, sitting up and pointing at him, "are not finding out _anything _about me tonight, thank you very much. There's been enough of that."

Alex was drunk, but not drunk enough to miss that remark. Obviously alcohol loosened the other woman's tongue; she wondered if she could get an answer now . . . "Hey Barek?"

"What?" she replied, turning away from Logan and back to Eames.

"You want to tell me where you got that hickey?"

":It's not a hickey!" Barek said indignantly. "It's just a bite mark!"

Complete silence enveloped the room for a few seconds until Goren coughed and said, "And . . . who bit you?"

Logan tried not to voice the string of curses that was running through his mind. She was going to give it up, he knew it. He was royally screwed.

Barek looked at Logan, then back at Bobby. "I don't know."

"You don't _know?" _Alex echoed incredulously. "What, people sneak into your bedroom at night and bite you?"

"No! It was . . . I mean, it's not . . ."

"I believe what she's trying to say," Logan spoke up, "is that there's no way in hell she's answering your question, no matter how you phrase it."

"Hmm." Eames looked over at her friend. "Carolyn? Is that what you were saying?"

Barek snorted. "He's so far from getting in my head that it's not even funny. He has no idea what he's talking about when it comes to _his partner_."

"You know what?" Logan snapped, sitting up. "Enough. You want to tell me why you suddenly hate me, or should I just leave?"

"Mike," Alex said, as seriously as she could manage in her inebriated state, as she clamped a hand on his knee to keep him from getting up. "Trust me, the 'Do what I want or I'm gonna storm out' thing . . . it never works. Nev-er."

"That's not what I'm doing," he shot back.

"Yeah, it is. You're being a brat, so sit your ass back down and play nice."

"You didn't tell me she's a _mean _drunk," he accused, looking at Goren.

"She's not," he said impassively. "And you're mean when you're sober, so maybe you're not the best person to complain."

"Ouch!" Alex laughed, high-fiving Barek, who looked slightly confused. "Nice, Bobby."

Bobby just shrugged and returned his eyes to her, where they had been most of the evening.

"Oh, that reminds me!" Alex exclaimed, watching his eyes travel down her body. "What was with the staring today in the conference room, both of you?"

"Staring at _what_?" Logan asked sharply.

"My boobs, you idiot!" Barek answered, barely restraining herself from throwing one of her empty beer bottles at him. "You know, those things on my chest that you watched for five minutes while Eames and I joked about you doing it?"

Logan, unable to think of a response to that outburst, just stared at her, open-mouthed.

"Ok, guys." Alex said, holding up her hands for silence. "You two have obviously done _something _that makes you both uneasy. Can I just point out that it really, really doesn't help to snipe at the one other person besides yourself who understands the problem? Namely, each other."

Barek gritted her teeth and told Alex, "Yeah,well, that's real easy for you to say. You've got someone who actually likes you."

"The hell . . .?" Logan blurted, leaning forward to get a better look at his partner's face. "I like you, Carolyn!"

"Hah."

"I do! Why would you think I don't?" her persisted.

She shook her head, trying to dismiss the issue. "Never mind. Forget it."

"Ohhh, no you don't." He abruptly slid off the couch and onto the floor, landing next to Barek. Crossing his arms and giving her a penetrating look, he repeated the question: "Why would you think I don't like you?"

"Because!" she burst out. "Just . . . because it's obvious."

Figuring Logan and Barek were too absorbed in their argument to notice if she moved, Alex scrambled to her feet, grabbed her drink, and went to sit next to Goren on the loveseat. "This is interesting," she whispered to him as she curled her legs under her and pulled his arm around her, then took a sip of her beer.

"You sure you want to finish that?" he attempted, reaching for the bottle.

"Down, boy. I'm still doing fine, and anyway, I don't think I could stand to watch them duke this out without alcohol in my system."

"Hmph." He wasn't in the mood to argue with her, and she did have a point: she didn't sound anywhere near drunk enough to set off any danger signals in his head. Sighing, he dropped the issue and returned his attention to the battle going on in front of them.

"Every single thing you said to me today," Barek was yelling, "that wasn't related to work - and some of the things that were - was some smartass comment about how you don't need me! How am I _supposed_ to interpret that?"

"You could try not being so damn oversensitive," Logan shot back.

"Me?" she said on an incredulous laugh. "Me? I'm oversensitive? Believe me, Mike - if I were oversensitive, I would have ditched you the first time you slammed a pool cue into a guy's stomach. But no, I'm still here! I don't know why the hell _why _right about now, but -"

"Carolyn," he said pleadingly, "please. That's just how I am; my sense of humor is -"

"Your 'sense of humor'," she hissed, interrupting him, "apparently only applies to me. Because you sure as hell don't treat _Eames_ that way!"

Alex, who had become absorbed in the show, stiffened and muttered to Goren, "Wait, why is she bringing me into this?"

"Oh yeah?" Logan yelled at his partner. "You know why that is? It's because I don't have to work with Eames every day and constantly try to pretend I haven't kissed her!"

Barek's mouth snapped shut and she gaped at him.

On the loveseat, Alex sent an elbow into her partner's stomach and whispered, "See? I told you he never -"

"Yeah," he said, quickly cutting her off. "I know you did."

"Well good. That makes twice today that I get to say 'I told you so,'" she informed him with a grin.

"You haven't . . . I . . . Eames . . . what?" Barek finally managed to stammer.

Logan raised his eyebrows questioningly. "Which part of that comes as a surprise to you? That I haven't kissed Eames, or that I have to make myself forget?"

"Well, but it was just . . . you didn't seem like . . ." She paused. "Does that mean you liked it?"

"That's our cue," Alex hissed, tugging on Bobby's sleeve. "Let's get out of here before we end up watching something we don't want to see."

She didn't have to tell him twice. Within seconds, they were up and tiptoeing out the front door.

Logan and Barek didn't even hear the door open and close behind their friends.


	24. Cracking Claire's armor

"God, I've got a headache," Barek moaned the next afternoon.

Eames arched an eyebrow and gave her an amused look. "I hear getting drunk will do that to you."

"Shut up, you. You should be hungover, too, and it's not fair that you're not!"

"I stopped at four," Alex pointed out. "And I actually _slept _last night," she added, glancing over her shoulder to where Logan sat, half-concealed by the pole in front of his desk. "Which I assume you didn't, judging by the look on his face."

Barek flushed bright red and glared at the other woman, who stared right back with a teasing smile on her face.

They were still in a staring contest when Logan strolled by and said, "You know, you keep looking at each other so much, you're going to make me and Goren jealous."

Alex moved her eyes first, turning to grin at him. "Isn't that part of the fun?"

He gave her a dirty look. "No, it's -"

"Quiet!" Barek ordered, gesturing toward the front of the room.

Logan and Eames obediently shut their mouths and turned to see what had caught Barek's attention. "She's here!" Alex exclaimed, glad that they could get started soon.

"Yeah," Logan snorted, "and she brought the ball and chain. Check it out."

Tony was walking a few steps behind Claire, eyeing suspiciously every human they passed on the way to Deakins's office in the back of the room.

"Bobby would be having a field day with this," Barek said as the three turned in unison and followed the two young people as they swept past.

"I'm sure he and Melinda are having plenty of fun in Interview 1," Alex said. "You know how he loves a good ruse."

"Hey, what happened to old-fashioned detective work," Logan pretended to carp, "where we just went ahead and lied to their face?"

"It got more sophisticated," Barek informed him. "But then, a fossil like you might have missed that decade."

Alex winced, expecting a replay of the other day's sniping. She was surprised and pleased to see that instead of snapping back a retort, Logan just bent over and murmured something to her too quietly for Alex to hear.

Barek grinned and punched him in the arm as he straightened up. "You are such a -"

"Detectives!" Deakins called from the doorway of his office. "Are you busy with your coffee klatch, or do you want to join the rest of us and do some work?"

All three nodded apologetically. "Coffee klatch?" Logan whispered as they walked toward Eames's desk, where she needed to retrieve Goren's portfolio and her own notes. "What the hell's that?"

"Guess they don't teach you Irish kids German, huh?" Barek asked, looking from him to Eames.

"Uh, generally not," Logan admitted. "You know German, too, Carolyn? Are there any languages left that you _don't _speak?"

"Yes, and no I don't actually speak much German. Goren would wipe the floor with me in a contest. But anyway, a coffee klatch is basically a bunch of people getting together to gossip and drink coffee."

"Sounds like a normal day in Major Case," Alex said with a grin.

Deakins re-appeared in his doorway and cleared his throat pointedly. Giving him sheepish smiles, the three detectives obeyed the summons and walked into his office.

* * *

_Meanwhile, in Interview 1 . . ._

"This is going to be interesting," Melinda said as she studied the forged ER records Goren and a documents technician had just finished creating for her. "I can't wait to see his face when he realizes that maybe beating up on his girlfriends - and killing their mothers - isn't such a good idea."

"It _will_ be rather . . . satisfying, won't it?" Bobby agreed with a grin. "Now, do you remember the story about Eames?"

Melinda snickered, then contained herself and nodded. "Sorry for laughing. It's just . . . funny, thinking of you letting her lead you around by the nose."

He offered her a distracted smile. "Well that, she pretty much does do. But tell me the rest of it; Claire's smart enough to pick up on it if you say something that contradicts my story."

She sighed. "She's a cold-blooded bitch who pushes you around. Your friends hate her, and she hates your friends. She, uh, hits and scratches when she gets mad." She paused, then looked at him. "That good?"

Alex was going to just love listening to this interview, he thought. "Close enough, yes. Do you have any questions?"

"You're staying in here, right? Because eventually I'm going to mess up something and you're going to need to correct me."

He nodded. "It's your show, but I'll be here, and Barek and Eames - they're the two women you talked to last time - will be behind the mirror in case we need them."

"And . . ." She paused, looking anxious. "Tony's not allowed in here, right?"

He gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "I promise you, Mel, we're not going to let him hurt you."

"Ok, then," Melinda replied gravely. "I'm ready when you are."

* * *

"I really don't think . . ." Claire was saying hesitantly a few minutes later. "I mean, are you sure he can't come with me? It's really . . ."

"Sorry," Eames said shortly, determinedly keeping the polite smile on her face. "Office policy - no one sitting in unless it's your lawyer."

"Go on, honey," Tony said, his voice sounding unctuous to Barek and Eames, who looked at each other and rolled their eyes. "You'll be fine, and remember you can stop talking to them any time you want. You got that?"

If he had been trying to hide the command in that comment, he'd failed miserably, Alex thought as Claire nodded meekly and kissed his cheek before allowing herself to be led into the interview room.

A split second before the door closed behind them, Tony saw Melinda sitting inside the room. "Her!" he said hotly, tearing away from Logan's restraining hand and pointing at the window. "What the hell is _she _doing here?"

"Buck up, Tony," Barek said cheerfully, giving him a pat on the shoulder that was more like an open-palmed punch. "Claire loves you, right? She's not going to listen to whatever stupid stories Melinda Parker tells her!"

"Yeah," Alex said, copying Barek's action with his other shoulder. She shook her head solemnly, looking concerned. "You, know they say lack of trust is one of the big relationship killers."

"Shut up," he sneered at her, leaning forward and trying to loom over her threateningly.

Ok, he was tall, she'd give him that, but other than that, his attempt made Eames want to laugh. "I may be short and blonde," she informed him, "but I don't like bullies, and I carry a gun. So if I were you, I'd stop trying to fuck with me. Got it?" she concluded with a bright smile.

Tony scowled, but pulled back and resumed standing normally.

"Good boy." The two women kept their hold on him and together, marched him back to Eames desk, where they deposited him none-too-gently, on a chair next to it. "Why don't you just have a seat here," Barek announced with a smirk a few seconds after they'd dumped him into the chair. "Don't worry, we'll keep you occupied until Claire and Melinda are done."

Logan, hanging back by the door of the interview room, couldn't suppress a grin at seeing the two small women easily dominate the piece of scum they were holding.

* * *

"Who are you?" Claire demanded as she sat down across from Melinda. This new girl obviously wasn't a cop - she was too young, too casually dressed, and too nervous-looking - but for the life of her, Claire couldn't figure out what she was.

Melinda smiled and offered her hand. "My name's Melinda Parker. Nice to meet you."

Claire automatically shook the girl's hand, then jerked her hand away as she placed the name. "Are you the Melinda who cheated on Tony?" she demanded, glaring.

Melinda burst out laughing. "I'm the Melinda who Tony may have _claimed _cheated on him, but I'm definitely not a Melinda who _did _cheat on him. You think I wanted to lose a few more teeth over something like that?"

"Why would he lie to me about his old girlfriend? It's not like I care; he's with me, not you."

Melinda glanced at Goren, who inclined his head in a slight nod, then turned back to Claire and leaned back in her chair, steepling her hands together under her chin. "Oh, I don't know. The whole part where he cheated on me might be pretty damaging. Then there's the one where he might not want you to know how many times I tried to get away from him. Or maybe because he knew if you talked to me, I'd be happy to tell you about all the times he beat me up?" She shrugged. "Just a few possibilities."

"He beat you up?" Claire snorted, looking skeptical. "That's ridiculous. He's never laid a hand on _me_!"

Goren coughed pointedly. "Claire, that's not what you told me yesterday."

Claire, who hadn't even noticed Goren standing in the corner, jumped and looked up. "Detective Goren, that was . . . I was just, you know, commiserating with you, and . . ."

"You showed me the bruises," he reminded her. "You might as well come clean, at least about that."

Giving him a wounded look, she sighed. "Fine, so he grabbed my arm too hard and left a bruise. So what? It's not like that's abuse."

Undaunted, Melinda just nodded politely and asked, "Has he ever backed you up against a wall when you fight? And put his hands around your neck, but not quite touched the skin?"

Claire blanched. "What? He . . . no! No, that's stupid, why would anyone let a guy do that?"

"In my case?" Melinda said. "Because I figured it was just him being angry, and he hadn't hurt me too bad, so why make a fuss when he was going to be back to normal in a few minutes?" She paused to watch Claire's reaction. "Any of that starting to sound familiar?"

"No," Claire replied, not looking too convinced of her own denial. "I wouldn't . . . I'm not the type of person who would stay with an abusive guy."

Melinda smiled with sad understanding. "And you would know if you were with one . . . because abusive guys are all rough-edged and bad-tempered and drink a lot and go around getting in bar fights and stuff?"

"Well, that's kind of an exaggeration, but I'm telling you, Tony can control his temper just fine -"

"- when he wants to," Melinda filled in before Claire could finish the sentence. "And sometimes he gets bored and doesn't want to. Are you recognizing any of this, Claire?" she demanded, leaning forward with fire in her eyes. "He's been telling you he's sorry, right? It's just that he got a little angry and lost control?"

"Yes." Claire's voice sounded small all of a sudden.

"That's how it started with me," Melinda went on, more gently now. "And then maybe he'd step on my foot or give my a playful punch on the arm that had nothing to do with play. Then, the pretending to put his hands around my neck turned into actually putting his hands around my neck, and squeezing. And then . . . this." She slid the folder with the ER records across the table to the other girl and waited while Claire perused it.

Bobby mentally reviewed the contents of the fake file. It contained forged documentation of a real event, one that Melinda had been too frightened to seek emergency treatment for at the time. Concussion, broken cheekbone, cracked ribs, broken right arm. Caused by a 'fall down stairs,' Next to that part, he'd jotted what he thought was a fairly believable 'Note by attending physician': _Head wound not accompanied by external trauma - not consistent with fall. Shaken? Thrown against something? Cracked ribs unlikely given the mechanics of the incident as described by pt. _Then, in block letters and underlined: _ASSAULT. Boyfriend?_

Claire scanned the pages, growing paler with each one. "This . . . this . . ." she stammered, looking up at Melinda with poorly-disguised fear in her eyes. Then, seeming to steel herself, she blurted quickly, "I'm sorry this happened to you but it has nothing to do with me and even if it did how would I know that Tony had anything to do with it?"

"Claire, would you just _listen _to me? You have a horrible poker face, ok? Almost everything I've mentioned him doing to me, your face told me he did it to you."

"No, but -"

"I stayed around," Melinda continued, ignoring Claire's protests, "because I thought he was the only one who loved me. Because it was too hard to stay away from him when I tried. And for that, I got knocked around mentally for a year, then physically for the next three."

"Well, why would you stay with him if -"

"Claire!" Melinda said sharply, reaching across the table and grabbing Claire's hands. "You have to listen to me. He's going to hurt you, and when he does, it's going to be that much harder to get away from him. You need to do something about this before he gets the chance."

A single tear slipped down Claire's cheek as she stared at the newly exposed scars on Melinda's arms, but she still clamped her lips shut and refused to speak.

"You looking at these?" Melinda asked casually, using the finger of one hand to trace the lines on the other arm. "Some of them are his, some of 'em are mine. The last few years, I figured, you know . . . if he was going to hurt me anyway, I might as well go ahead and do it myself."

Claire suddenly took her hands back from Melinda and dropped her head forward into them. Another tear trekked down her forearm as she moaned, "Why are you doing this to me? Why are you trying to hurt Tony?"

"Me?" Melinda asked. "I'm doing it because I want to see him get his just desserts for what he's done to me, and you, and probably other girls as well. As for Detective Goren, I get the impression he's doing it because Tony killed your mother."

"I don't like people who kill people," Bobby informed her from the corner. "And I especially don't like people who kill people, then use someone innocent as a human shield."

"What? I'm not a shield! What, are you trying to shoot him or something?"

Melinda slammed the flat of her hand down on the table, startling all three of them. "You _are _a fucking shield, Claire. Tell me, do you really think he'd stay here with with you if they arrested you? What about speaking up in your defense? He won't do it and you damn well know it. You're expendable, Claire! It's past time for you to realize that's not right!" Drained by her outburst, she slumped down in her chair and shook her head. "He's like a . . . a wild dog. No matter how many treats you give him, he'll still bite you and run."

"No!" Claire yelled, baring her teeth at the other woman.

Goren, deciding it was time to up the ante, stepped forward. "Claire, we know you know details about your mother's murder that you aren't giving us. You know where Tony was that night, or at least that amount of time he was gone. I'm sorry," he went on, slowly drawing a set of handcuffs from his belt, "but I'm going to have to take you into custody as a material witness until you agree to give us that information."


	25. Denouement

A/N: Whoa, this story went and ended when I wasn't looking! How's that for luck, chapter 25 on the mark. And you get to find out why the hell I called it "Sacrifice"! Anyway, they don't all live happily ever after but, well, we can take comfort in the fact that Tony's going to get his ass kicked (among other actions) in jail.

* * *

"Melinda's pretty damn good at this," Barek whispered to Eames behind the mirror. "Wonder if she wants a job."

"No kidding. I'd work with her."

"Quiet, you two," Deakins commanded.

Both women subsided. A second later, Barek whispered to Eames, "Claire's cuffs just went on; you ready to go mess with Tony's head?"

Alex grinned. "Oh Carolyn, I thought you'd never ask!"

"This is gonna be good," Deakins told them, rubbing his hands together like an evil genius as he watched Eames slip a mini tape recorder into her pocket. "I can't wait to see him with _his _feet in the fire."

Five seconds later, Barek and Eames were back at Alex's desk, where Tony was being involuntarily entertained by Logan, who was, in turn, having the time of his life pretending to be a buffoon who hadn't been allowed to take part in the interview. "Naw!" Logan was saying loudly. "I'm serious, you shoulda seen that girl! I mean, her dress was cut down to -" He broke off, pretending to have just noticed the two women. "Oh, uh, hi guys."

"Having fun over here?" Barek asked her partner with a smirk.

"Ah, I was just telling him some stories about 'the one that got away,'" he improvised.

"Now _that's _interesting!" Alex spoke up, feigning amazement. "Because we're here to tell _Tony _about the one that got away!"

"What are you talking about?" Tony demanded, glaring at her.

"Your girlfriend in there?" Barek began, casually jerking a thumb over her shoulder toward the interview rooms. "She just admitted to killing her mother."

There was a tiny pause as Tony searched for an appropriate facial expression, and then he gave her a look of shock. "Excuse me?"

"Yep," Eames said airily. "You know, it was weird! All we had to say was that we knew that one of the two of you had fired that gun, and we thought it was you, and she just started spilling her guts!"

Tony's mouth worked for a second before he got his feet back under him. "Claire said that? Wow . . . you think you know someone, and then . . ."

"No kidding," Logan agreed quickly, slapping the boy on the back and enjoying the wince it brought. "So, you didn't realize she left the apartment that night?"

Tony pretended to think about that for a moment as he decided what story to give them. "Well you know, now that you mention it . . . she did say she was running out for coffee, and I couldn't say how long she was gone . . ."

The two women tried to hide their triumphant looks.

"Tony, thank you _so _much!" Barek simpered.

"Oh," Alex added, not to be outdone, "you were just _perfect_, Tony! That's exactly what we needed to hear!"

Whatever else he was, Tony Meadows wasn't an idiot. He knew when someone was mocking him. "What the hell are you talking about?" he snapped.

"Watch your language," Logan ordered, abruptly grabbing Tony's collar and hauling him to his feet. "What say we go for a little walk, huh? What do you think, ladies?"

Barek glanced at Eames and they both grinned. "Oh, we just can't wait."

"That's what I thought. Move it, kid." He pushed Tony forward and, steering him by the hand he kept clamped on his shoulder, led the way to Interview 1, where Claire Young, handcuffs clearly visible, sat crying silently.

"Melinda," Barek said, noticing that the girl looked frightened at seeing her old abuser walk into the room, "why don't you and I step out for a minute, ok?"

Eyes on the ground, Melinda nodded and followed her toward the door. But when Barek crossed the threshold out of the room, Melinda paused on it and turned back to catch the hateful glare Tony was giving her back. "Oh, and Tony?"

"What?" he snapped.

"Between me and Claire, you got five hellish years out of us. But you know what? No more. Now it's your turn to suffer. I hope you enjoy trying to smack around your cellmate as much as you liked smacking me around." Having said her piece, Melinda turned and left the room, walking a little taller than she had when she came into it.

"Crazy bitch!" Tony shouted after her. Then, turning back to the detectives, he growled, "What the fuck was she talking about?"

"Shhh," Logan murmured mockingly, patting Tony on the head. "Why don't you try shutting up and listening for once, my friend?"

"A very good idea," Alex agreed as she hit rewind on the tape recorder in her pocket. "Because I think we're all going to want to hear this."

"Claire?" Tony snapped, fixing hard eyes on his girlfriend. "What are they talking about?"

Claire's eyes were wide as she shook her head and stammered, "I . . . Tony, I don't know! I didn't say anything . . ."

"Listen and learn," Alex told them. She set the the tape recorder in the center of the table, turned the volume all the way up, and pressed Play.

_"Having fun over here?" said Barek's voice_

_"Ah, I was just telling him some stories about 'the one that got away," Logan told her._

_"Now that's interesting!" Alex said. "Because we're here to tell Tony about the one that got away!"_

_"What are you talking about?" Tony demanded.._

_"Your girlfriend in there? She just admitted to killing her mother," Barek said._

Claire gasped at hearing this and whipped her head around to stare at Goren. "What . . . why did she tell him that? I didn't . . .!"

He laid a hand on her wrist, trying to calm her. "Just listen to the rest."

_"Excuse me?" Tony's voice said._

_"Yep. You know, it was weird! All we had to say was that we knew that one of the two of you had fired that gun, and we thought it was you, and she just started spilling her guts!"_

Claire made a choked, incoherent noise. "Why . . . why . . ."

Tony was pointedly silent, watching her protests impassively as the tape continued.

_Tony's voice, sounding surprised: "Claire said that? Wow . . . you think you know someone, and then . . ."_

"Tony!" This time Claire was glaring at him, not looking at him entreatingly. "You know . . .!"

_"No kidding," Logan said. "So, you didn't realize she left the apartment that night?"_

_Tony again: "Well you know, now that you mention it . . . she did say she was running out for coffee, and I couldn't say how long she was gone . . ."_

Alex snapped off the tape recorder and sat back to watch the fireworks she knew were about to erupt.

"Tony!" Claire said again, pleading now. "That wasn't you, right? They faked it."

Tony gave her a look that was slightly contemptuous. "They _know_, Claire. They know you did it. You can stop lying now."

She gaped at him "What are you talking about? I didn't do anything!"

"You remember what Melinda told you, Claire?" Bobby said, leaning forward to say it almost in her ear. "She said that to him, you're expendable. Do you believe her now?"

"I . . . I . . ." She looked back to Tony, obviously wanting desperately for him to prove Goren and Melinda wrong. "You know I didn't . . ."

"Stop lying!" he shouted at her, and if Alex hadn't known what kind of scum he was, she might almost have believed his attempt at earnestness. "Tell them what you did!"

Claire stared at him as it slowly dawned on her that he truly wasn't the man she had always thought he was. "Are you saying I killed my mother, Tony?" she asked not letting any emotion into her voice.

"I'm sorry, honey, but they're the police and I'm obligated to tell them what you di-"

"_Liar_!" Claire shot to her feet, her chair skidding across the room, and, before anyone could restrain her, clamped her hands on his shoulders and shook him, hard. "You fucking _liar_! They told me you would, but oh nooo, I wouldn't believe them. Just like I wouldn't believe there was anything wrong with you." She released one of his shoulders to jab a finger toward him. "You all were right. He did do it! He . . . he killed my mom. I saw . . . I saw . . ."

"That's enough, Claire," Goren said quietly, taking her by the arms and pulling her away from Tony. "You can get back at him by telling us the truth about that night and sending him to jail."

Claire nodded shakily and let out a deep breath.

A second later, Tony was on her, trying to wrap his fingers around her throat even as Bobby towed her away. "Bitch! You goddamn bitch!" he screamed into her face. "I spend a year with your sorry ass and -"

"_Enough_!" Alex hit him from the side with all of her body weight, slamming him past Claire and into a wall.

Logan, a split second behind her, dodged past her body and pressed a forearm against Tony's throat. "You like trying to strangle people, Tony? You think this is fun, cutting off someone's air?" He increased the pressure and leaned closer, sneering into the man's face. "You like it when they tell you they love you while they beg you to stop? You're fucking _scum_!"

The door to the room opened and Barek strode in, moving quickly but not running. "I've got him," she told Goren, who couldn't decide whether it was wise to release Claire so he could help with Tony. "Mike," she said quietly, taking hold of her partner's bicep but not actually trying to pull him away. "Let him go."

Bobby pulled a sobbing Claire to the door, wanting to get her as far away from her raging boyfriend as possible. "Take her," he ordered a uniformed officer who was standing outside the door When the officer tried to pull her away, though, she tenaciously clung to Bobby, crying harder.

As if summoned, Melinda appeared next to the officer. "Claire," she said softly, wrapping an arm around the girl's shoulders. "It's Melinda. Tony's going to jail and you're going to help put him there. Come on, let's get you out of here, ok?"

Managing a slight nod, Claire allowed herself to be pulled away from Bobby and threw her arms around the only other person in the building who knew what she was experiencing: Melinda Parker.

Bobby watched the officer and the two women until they were out of sight, then turned back into the interview room to evaluate the situation.

Things appeared to be under control. Once again, it was Barek and Eames who were restraining the man. Logan stood slightly behind them, arms crossed and obviously only holding onto his temper by a thread.

"Do me a favor and hold him while I cuff him?" Alex asked her partner over her shoulder. She wished she didn't have to ask for help, but it was a pragmatic decision; together, she and Barek didn't find it difficult to hold Tony back, but if she released him to get her cuffs, Barek might not be able to hold him alone. None of them wanted to chance letting Logan near him again, so Goren was the only other option.

Nodding, Goren reached between the two women and planted a hand on Tony's solar plexus, pinning the man to the wall, then forcibly turned him to face it as Eames cuffed him and recited his rights.

A few seconds later, she led him to the door and shoved him through it into the arms of the waiting officer.

"You know what really scares me?" Barek said sadly when Alex had closed the door and moved to stand next to her partner. "It's that the only reason that we were able to help Claire is because of the death of her mother. If he hadn't killed Gabrielle, if you guys hadn't been called in . . ."

"He would have kept going until Claire was dead," Alex finished, shaking her head.

"Her life in exchange for her daughter's," Goren said slowly. "It's the ultimate sacrifice."

THE END

* * *

Endnote: If you're depressed that this story's over, you can take comfort in the fact that the next time I get an idea for a casefile, I'll probably make it a continuation of Sacrifice, the same Sacrifice was a continuation of Spilled Blood. So just cross your fingers, or something. Oh yeah, and reviews are always nice too! 


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